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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24275122">blood rare and sweet as cherry wine</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Asuka%20Kureru'>Asuka Kureru (Askerian)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>cherry wine [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aphrodisiacs, Dubious Consent, Fingerfucking, Fisting, Fraternal Polyandry, M/M, Multi, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Verse, Overstimulation, Polyamory, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Warring States Period (Naruto)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:26:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>28,727</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24275122</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Asuka%20Kureru</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"We did go looking for omegas," Izuna pointed out under his breath, staring down at his personal enemy.</p>
<p>"Look me in the eyes and tell me you want Senju Tobirama for a wife," Madara replied just as quietly, a brief spark of amusement blooming at the shocked horror on his baby brother's face.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>Before he was forced to accompany a pack of rut-muddled idiots on a half-baked plan to kidnap omega brides for the good of the Uchiha clan, Madara hadn't given Hashirama's younger brother much thought. Tobirama was a Senju, and therefore the enemy; he, like Madara and Izuna, was sole survivor of his litter, and so to avoid being alone and therefore unmarriageable had ended up paired up with his older omega brother by default; he was a vicious opponent; he was a beta.</p>
<p>He had to be a beta. Hashirama wasn't, and nobody would be brazen or stupid enough to bundle up two reproductive siblings in the same litter, right? </p>
<p>... Right?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Izuna, Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Izuna/Uchiha Madara, Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Madara, Uchiha Izuna &amp; Uchiha Madara</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>cherry wine [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1752361</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>193</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>967</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>fic's already all written, just needs some editing. about 28k total, it should be all posted in under a week.</p>
<p>a sequel is planned but for that one i make zero promises.</p>
<p>(ps <i>no i am not coming back to naruto's generation's part of the fandom you can't make me.</i> D:)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"It's a sacrilege," Madara had pointed out to the gathered elders. "It tramples the laws of hospitality and spits in the face of every god or spirit boasting of even a single piddly road shrine in this country."</p>
<p>He'd said it mildly, controlled into bland stillness, because he could tell their minds were made up, and they'd had all the barely-blooded warriors riled up already anyway. The young idiots would go raiding with or without Madara, with or without their clan head's approval and leadership. In their heads they would just come back once it was done and accept the punishment for having done it -- a fair enough price, for rut-muddled idiots and their desperate littermates.</p>
<p>"The sacrilege will already have been accomplished," Elder Yoritomo had replied piously. "The young ones do not propose to attack the mikos-to-be on pilgrimage, of course not, that would be bestial! But if the Fūma clan has already attacked and, ah, <em>potentially </em>defiled them... It would be a mercy to still take them into our walls. Why, think, a shrine maiden crawling home in disgrace, heavy with a shinobi's bastard get. What respectable civilian household would take them back?"</p>
<p>'Potentially' indeed. Hah. Wait until their clothes were torn a bit, 'rescue' them, take your prize; and then who could tell later on that the deed hadn't already been done anyway.</p>
<p>And of course it had nothing to do with the fact that to be a shrine maiden you had to have quite a bit more chakra than an average civilian. And often no obvious bloodline to get in the way of the sharingan, or be accused of bloodline theft later on when the litter was old enough for the battlefield.</p>
<p>A lot of those omega maidens were probably shinobi-sired, anyway. Offered to the gods as a respectable way to get a misbegotten child out of the household. But still.</p>
<p>Madara had given deep, pleasant consideration to the thought of burning the council house down. Then he'd given a curt nod, turned on his heels without a word lest vile swearing make it out, and gone to head up the party of idiots, to make sure at least some of them would make it back alive.</p>
<p>Them and their war brides.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>Five alphas, eight assorted betas. Usually disciplined, even as young as they still were, but the thought of potential wives (potential families to fill the holes left in torn-apart litters) had left them fractious and eager for bloodshed, edging on a rut. Madara had to lay hands on one of his own people to settle them all down when after hours on the road all they found of the pilgrim train was a couple of dead Fūma bastards and abandoned shuriken, some omega-scented veils caught onto branches. </p>
<p>"Now <em>tell me again what you said</em>."</p>
<p>"All my apologies, Madara-sama, it -- nothing worth repeating. I beg your forgiveness."</p>
<p>Madara shoved Setsuko and her newly broken arm at her littermate, eyes burning red; the rest of them subsisted, eyes averted and throats subtly bared, and finally started milling around the site of the attack to look for clues. <em>Suddenly </em>they remembered their training. 'Che.</p>
<p>Izuna was turning over a corpse, ignoring the display; Madara joined him, jaw tight, waited for a handful of seconds. Couldn't make himself wait any longer than that. "Well?" </p>
<p>"Shuriken to the throat. It was an ambush." Sighing, his little brother straightened up, sneaked him a wincing look. "Was this why you didn't want to come?"</p>
<p>Madara would have loved to pretend it was; he almost did, just to avoid having that argument again, then sighed shortly through his nose. "No. Obviously they would have an escort, but I didn't expect it to be good enough to fend off <em>that </em>clan." A frown, scanning the scene. "At least not so thoroughly. Smaller shrines usually don't have that kind of money." He could see only one body that might have been a civilian bodyguard; and no dead priests, no chaperoning beta siblings, no maiden omegas.</p>
<p>The shuriken in the Fūma corpse was embedded halfway through her vertebra. A precision slice with a great deal of power to the throw and probably an edge of chakra along the metal for added penetration. Not the easiest with normal metal.</p>
<p>"So then why--"</p>
<p>"Because!" he snapped, throwing a hand in the air, "How the hell is it any better to take unwilling broodmares of dubious quality to refill our ranks <em>next generation </em>when we could make <em>alliances with strong clans and have support right now?!</em>"</p>
<p>Izuna sighed pointedly, restraining himself from a dubious glare only because they were surrounded by agitated alphas and he was too smart to make Madara look challengeable right now. "Sovereignty of our--"</p>
<p>"Shut it. We're moving out."</p>
<p>The alphas growled quietly between them as they gathered again, but subsided as they started moving silently through the trees. Madara led the pack, from the dryness of the blood already knowing that they were too late. The great shrine at Tomoshibi was not going to be raided by a mere fourteen ninja, even if they were Uchiha. The remaining Fūma <em>might </em>have managed to cut off the best escape routes and force the travelers to slow down before they could get to safety, but that wasn't a sure bet; the tracks went into the tangled woods and the giant shuriken they favored didn't do well with so much shrubbery...</p>
<p>Either way, he couldn't make everyone go home anymore, not even knowing their first goal was good as ruined. If the escorts were that good, then the Uchiha needed to know everything they could find out about them. It wasn't just a raid now, it was a mission.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>"Niisan."</p>
<p>Hidden in the fork of a tree, Madara let his eyes travel across broken branches, raked earth, and the bare shiver of leaves and grass against the direction of the wind. "I see it."</p>
<p>Madara's people were gaining; really close now. Because the Fūma had stopped giving chase and were now going in cautious circles, borderline beating every shadow to flush out a prey gone to ground.</p>
<p>They hadn't found it yet. Had to be shinobi. </p>
<p>He signaled to detach half of his people, sent them to circle wide and seek out the Fūma's outside perimeter -- the waiting net -- and started ghosting after the Fūma hunters into it.</p>
<p>"Omegas?" Izuna breathed as he followed in his footsteps exactly.</p>
<p>"Long gone. That's the escort playing hare." He made a faint grimace of distaste; Izuna repressed a smile. Neither one of them needed to have the conversation that went with it. <em>'It's over now; those sore losers!' 'As if <strong>you</strong> would have let the escort go, niisan (sore loser yourself.)'</em></p>
<p>His people were going to be in a right mood. Good thing there were enemy nin to destroy. As for the escort themselves... Hm. Madara would have to see what clan they were from before he could decide if he was going to allow them to escape with their lives. The Fūma would have attacked the pilgrims more cautiously in the first place if the guards had been obvious or numerous, so... Discreet, efficient, a small-but-high-level team? That was dangerous. </p>
<p>But they weren't in Uchiha territory. He might be able to afford mercy.</p>
<p>Bird whistles from his team -- fifteen enemies making up the net, and at least ten searching the woods, in prudent teams of two... Damn. That was almost twice the size of his own squad. He'd give his people good odds of killing them all, but only if they managed to surprise them all, and even then he might lose three or four. Not something he was going to order here; it really wasn't worth the risk. </p>
<p>Izuna was better than him at stealth, but less likely to break free if all of them turned on him at once, finding him at their center. Madara signaled him away, to send the others the message to keep hidden. The entire second of delay before his younger brother went hinted clearly at his displeasure. Oh well.</p>
<p>(He always felt briefly guilty whenever he benefited from the fact that Izuna had not been raised to share the decision-making power with him, but to defer and enforce instead. They were supposed to work differently now but the early dynamic had long set.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if they had been the same age Izuna would never have tolerated being coddled, and Madara found he rather enjoyed it, so.)</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>A shallow ridge ran through the woods, the gap swallowed by bushes. The Fūma nin made sure to check it thoroughly, and totally ignored the genjutsu-blurred hollow under the gnarled roots of an old tree stump. </p>
<p>The root hollow was another ruse. Heh. The escort hadn't been stupid enough to box themselves in; they'd found a gap between the branches of a massive tree a short distance away, the kind of place you would build the first platform of your treehouse, wide and stable. Obscured by branches and dead leaves, hair and clothes streaked with dried mud and moss, and with the evening coming they -- he? Only one? -- was borderline invisible, as long he didn't move.</p>
<p>Standing with his feet planted on two forking branches at the man's back, Madara watched the minute shift of his breathing, the way his hair moved. He still wore a maiden's kimono, long fluttering sleeves tied back, and rolled-up, quite unmaidenly pants underneath unveiling bare legs up to the knee. The sandals themselves had been long lost. The man sprawled face down in the gap, watching two pairs of Fūma meet up underneath him and snarl their frustration at each other.</p>
<p>"--can't have gotten far, Hinako was <em>sure</em> she'd hit him--"</p>
<p>"Gotta have holed up somewhere--"</p>
<p>"--be mewling for it soon, we just have to <em>listen</em>--"</p>
<p>... Oh.</p>
<p>No wonder the Fūma hadn't noticed the ninja bodyguard in the middle of the procession. </p>
<p>Under mud-and-moss, the scent of the escort rose clean, unmuddled to his nose -- omega.</p>
<p>Omega rapidly approaching his heat.</p>
<p>"--Gonna fucking dose him until he's a brainless, drooling sack of--"</p>
<p>The omega slipped a hand into his obi -- shuriken, Madara thought, or kunai -- and froze entirely. His head twitched minutely toward Madara, probably both wanting to turn around and not wanting to provoke a violent response. Madara took a step closer, politely letting his sandal brush the wood. Sank into a crouch. Under them the four Fūma bastards were still snarling quietly, milling around the trees. </p>
<p>Definitely going into heat. The smell didn't lie. </p>
<p>Definitely not a natural heat. Never mind that the Fūma had been talking about drugs; what kind of omega shinobi ever left the safety of their clan without having taken their ginger root tea? Madara didn't even like to forgo his own tea, and he wasn't at risk of going home to his brother pregnant.</p>
<p>(He was going to beat up his batch of morons <em>so damned hard</em> when they got home and simmered down from their rut, and then he was going to <em>drown</em> them in the stuff. Or get them castrated, either or.)</p>
<p>"Shh," he breathed. The nape of the omega's neck was bared under a tiny ponytail, short pale hair combed back and kept in place with a dozen small pins; a few strands had escaped, tickling at the bare skin just over the stiff collar of his kimono. A muscled neck; a strong back under unassuming cotton, gone stiff as steel. "No need to get their attention with a fight."</p>
<p>From the back at least the other shinobi was well-shaped, though Madara wished the sun hadn't gone down quite so fast under the leaves; most colors had been leached out in the shade. And the sharingan was unmatched in matters of seeing movement, but the man barely breathed, a hand still tucked behind him to get at whatever weapon he had stuffed behind the knot of his obi.</p>
<p>"Alone?" the man whispered back, turning his head a bare half-inch farther, unveiling the curve of his high cheekbone. Madara snorted, smiled. </p>
<p>"No."</p>
<p>If the omega thought he could overpower him and run, he had another think coming. Not that Madara wished to call his subordinates to him; after that complete debacle he would be damned to hell before he rewarded them with an omega in heat.</p>
<p>A faint twitch in that shoulder -- Madara was on the man before he could finish bringing up his shuriken. Entirely silent, he landed in a crouch astride the small of his back, the weapon-holding hand snatched and twisted back, Madara's other hand closing tight on the back of his neck.</p>
<p>Then he almost died of a raiton-induced heart attack, because that omega in long maiden sleeves could apparently <em>form his seals one-handed</em>.</p>
<p>A heave under him like a bucking horse; he tightened his grip on his neck and his wrist, twisting it up between the man's shoulder blades--</p>
<p>"Hey, didn't you hear something weird over there?"</p>
<p>The raiton. <em>Fuck</em>. </p>
<p>They both froze, waiting for the Fūma nin to investigate, Madara cursing himself and cursing the omega under him for setting off a jutsu that emitted light and made a buzzing noise at <em>twilight in the woods</em>. "Did you <em>want</em> to get caught?" he couldn't help hissing right into his ear, even as he hit another kunai out of the other man's free hand before it could get embedded in his thigh.</p>
<p>(Weak grip, unnervingly good aim. Huh.)</p>
<p>The omega hissed between his teeth in offense. It should have been no contest -- four angry shinobi who were already graphically plotting his rape on one side, a single, polite shinobi on the other side, the best course of action so obviously to wait until they were gone at least before trying anything else. The readiness in his body, though -- Madara knew some omegas reacted to their heats with increased aggressiveness, but... </p>
<p><em>Another </em>kunai. Oh, he was going to take that obi right off if it kept endlessly supplying weapons. Growling quietly, he slipped his hand to the front of the omega's throat, and set his teeth right on his nape, giving a good warning nip. Pinning him down bodily, knowing he was being quite unfair, that -- ah, this quiet, strangled gasp, that desperate swallow right against his palm, the aborted roll of those hips back into him.</p>
<p>Very unfair, but he was a shinobi. He dug his teeth a little deeper in before he released. </p>
<p>The skin was unbroken, but surely to bruise in the shape of his teeth. He... Damn. He probably ought to up the dosage on his teas. He wasn't... His body wasn't reacting. </p>
<p>But his mind. Huh.</p>
<p>The man under him trembled -- only for a second but Madara was pressing down on top of him with the whole length of his body; he noticed. There was no way he could have missed it.</p>
<p>"Shush," he tried, feeling strange -- some kind of intellectual curiosity, like he wanted to roll his hips back down just to see what happened, some kind of -- the omega smelled <em>heavy</em>, spicy and meaty and wet, and what <em>if</em> Madara's teeth left another overlapping bruise on that nape at the edge of the kimono -- "Shh, it's <em>alright</em>, just be quiet--"</p>
<p>The omega threw his head back to try to hit Madara's nose -- missed, but barely -- craned his head to glare over his shoulder and the rice powder on his cheek had smudged to expose a long dark slash.</p>
<p>Frozen in shock, Madara could only stare down as Senju Tobirama, the white demon of the Senju, his old friend's beloved beta littermate, snarled back at him.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>Madara had been robbed by life, but all the children who grew through this war were, sooner or later. Madara had been robbed of his normal life and his normal littermates (Kijitora, Sabi) and would never marry the proper way. He was an alpha without beta siblings to bind their eventual omega-and-beta wives into a harmonious union, to raise the numerous children he would sire, to make a real family.</p>
<p>He'd refused to butt in on Izuna and Anaguma's litter-of-two, proud and devastatingly alone through his early teenage years, but then child hunters had made it moot and now he and Izuna had no one but each other left. Brothers of two separate litters -- different ages, different temperaments and goals, different inheritances -- Izuna's litter had never been raised to rule as his had been, only to support, to assist from the shadows.</p>
<p>Madara still remembered practicing the little tasks of fatherhood on him and Anaguma, and the third babe who hadn't lived to her third month to be named. They were not equals; they would never be.</p>
<p>Hashirama had been the same as Madara. A special secret he'd shared with Madara when nobody else knew, that Madara had kept ever since, even after they were found out and the friendship killed off. Tobirama was younger, another lone survivor, lone beta sewn raggedly back onto Hashirama's litter to make something almost approaching a strong, healthy set.</p>
<p>A lone omega could not be expected to lead a clan, after all. No trusted advisors, no comfort, no flesh of his flesh to help tend to children, born in threes, in fives, in more. Madara <em>had </em>heard the rumors that Hashirama had been born single, not even a stillborn sib to share a womb with -- and nobody he knew <em>believed </em>them, but confirming Tobirama's true age would have given them too much weight. Unnatural, cursed.</p>
<p>Confirming Tobirama's true sex would make it so much worse.</p>
<p>Two reproductive siblings in the same litter was an aberration. A sign of degeneracy, of calamity to come. Like a child with two faces--</p>
<p>"Get <em>off</em> me, Uchiha."</p>
<p>Tobirama wasn't angry or drug-addled enough to meet his eyes, but he still aimed his glare as close as he could get away with. Dangerously still under Madara, teeth unveiled, and still smelling so <em>wet</em>.</p>
<p>What the hell had Hashirama been <em>thinking</em>, he distantly wondered, still staring, still reeling. Had they planned to wed the Uzumaki set without telling them? Or -- or did the Uzumaki already know, and were planning to pass off Tobirama's children as... as, oh, the Sage preserve them, <em>two reproductive siblings in the same <strong>marriage</strong></em>.</p>
<p>Not as disturbing as if they had been alpha and omega, with a chance to breed, but omegas in heat were known to get -- ah, <em>friendly</em> with their own sex, if they couldn't find anything else, and--</p>
<p>"I don't care if the whole Fūma clan attacks us at once. I will see you <em>dead</em>." </p>
<p>How many people were there in the Uzumaki set? Could they even handle two omegas at once? What if they had to -- what if they shared a heat?</p>
<p>What if Hashirama and his own blood-related <em>baby brother <strong>shared a heat</strong></em>.</p>
<p>"<em>Madara!</em>"</p>
<p>-- Oh. He was -- leaning a bit close. He just -- that scent, that impossible scent. Izuna would have told him if he'd caught it on the battlefield, sweating hard with effort and often drenched by suiton after suiton. Today's job had been entrapment. Maybe it was fake! Hah. Yes. Maybe that.</p>
<p>Probably that. </p>
<p>He fisted a hand in the tiny puff of a ponytail, dislodging hairpins, forced the Senju's head forward and down, and leaned in to breathe his scent on his tongue. </p>
<p>He had half a second to swear vilely in his mind, and then he had to throw himself to the side and off the Senju to avoid getting gutted like a fish. Tobirama was off like a shot, plunging between the branches.</p>
<p>It was animal instinct to throw himself after him, even more than it was well-trained reflex. The gap between the trees was empty of Fūma nin, but Tobirama's landing was not subtle, and neither was Madara's, a half-second (too far) after him.</p>
<p>A dodge around a tree, a fast hop over the ridge, and Tobirama was braking with both heels so hard Madara almost crashed into his back. The pair of Fūma nin coming at them raised their weapons, teeth bared, mouths open to call for help --</p>
<p>Two headless corpses, silent. </p>
<p>Madara's first boggled instinct was that somehow, entirely bypassing the sharingan's ability to track his every twitch, the Senju had done it. Then his little brother popped up behind the still-falling corpses, grinning and sword bared.</p>
<p>The grin fell off faster than the bodies did. </p>
<p>"<em>--Senju?</em>"</p>
<p>Tobirama threw himself straight at Izuna. Madara threw himself at his back. Tobirama had visibly decided he would only escape if at least one of them was maimed or worse, and that -- no.</p>
<p>A last-second, impossible dodge; a whirl that almost, <em>almost</em> made it under Izuna's guard, and Izuna's hand caught a grip in the shoulder of his kimono, fouling his momentum; and then Madara landed on the Senju's back again.</p>
<p>Then they had a few, very agitated seconds trying to pin his too-clever hands down. It reminded Madara of nothing so much as trying to catch a cat's paws without getting clawed to ribbons. </p>
<p>Forcing one hand and then another behind his back, securing them with wire -- the back of one hand to the opposite elbow, tying them with the thumb and middle and ring fingers pulled back to prevent hand signs. The Senju fought under them, face twisted in a silent snarl, arched and kicked with frantic rage -- bit at Izuna's wrist once, denting his wrist guard. In the end, though...</p>
<p>In the end, Madara sat astride his waist and held firm onto his tied arms as Izuna proceeded to frisk him with the weirdest look on his face.</p>
<p>"What the <em>hell</em> was that, Senju?" he whispered meanly as he went, eyebrows knit in displeasure. "You getting spoiled and lazy on easy missions now? You'd have had a better chance actually throwing yourself into my arms -- at least I'd have been <em>surprised</em>."</p>
<p>Three more throwing stars, a brace of kunai and a dozen explosive tags pulled out of his obi later, Madara was no closer to deciding what he was going to do. </p>
<p>The Senju were enemies, but this wasn't one of their battlefields. The mission Tobirama had been running interfered with nothing save the selfish desires of Madara's young clanspeople. Desires Madara <em>had</em> been wishing would be thwarted.</p>
<p>Tobirama was second strongest in his clan, and most lethal bar none.</p>
<p>Hashirama would hurt.</p>
<p>"Let <em>go.</em>"</p>
<p>"Sure! I'll get right onto that, right after I give a fuck -- okay, how many explosive tags do you even need?"</p>
<p>Hashirama would hurt. They weren't friends any longer, Madara had severed that bond himself when he chose to side with his father, his last remaining brother.</p>
<p>The demon of the Senju was Hashirama's last remaining brother. The only one that saved him from being alone, without siblings and without prospects other than becoming some litter's concubine -- no, he was a clan head, he would never quite be reduced to that, not officially at least. But in an arranged marriage wasn't it even more important not to be alone and under siege in your own home, without any allies of your own blood to keep from becoming nothing but a figurehead, an outsider's puppet --</p>
<p>If he let Tobirama go then every Uchiha that Tobirama killed afterwards would be on Madara's hands.</p>
<p>If he <em>didn't</em> let him go...</p>
<p>"Izuna. Take a corpse, lay a false trail."</p>
<p>"Mm," his little brother agreed, straightening up with one of Tobirama's kunai in hand. "They're already moving out, but not fast. I'll--"</p>
<p>He went still. Raised the kunai to his face, sniffed. Made the strangest face...</p>
<p>"Don't say it," Madara said softly. "Just--"</p>
<p><em>Go</em>, he almost got to say, and then Hachirō and his three beta littermates ghosted up through the bushes to join them, Hachirō already sniffing at the air with his sharingan scanning the woods almost feverishly.</p>
<p>Never mind. Never <em>fucking</em> mind. There went his last occasion to keep this under wraps.</p>
<p>Under him Senju Tobirama was a block of warm ivory in the shape of a man. Madara caught himself before he could rub his gloved thumb soothingly along the man's bared forearm. Weakening his grip in order to comfort an enemy was just ridiculous; the scent must be getting to him. The scent must have been getting to him for a while now, being so torn over his decision.</p>
<p>"Hachirō," Izuna ordered, smoothly stepping in his way, and lobbed one of the detached heads at him by the hair. "Take a head, go lay a false trail. Shichiko, find Naohime's party and tell them to come support us here. Brother?"</p>
<p>"--Omega?" Hachirō choked out, cradling the skull against his chest like he hadn't even noticed what it was. Madara narrowed his eyes in warning.</p>
<p>"Your superior gave you an order, shinobi. <em>Move</em>."</p>
<p>He didn't go until Madara actually growled.</p>
<p>The last two betas stayed behind -- staring for another few baffled seconds and then moving around the space to find the best way to support Madara and Izuna without getting in their way if the Senju broke free. </p>
<p>Tobirama snarled quietly and started trying to set his toes to grip a hold on the ground. Izuna walked up along his flank and casually kicked his feet aside. </p>
<p>"I've got more wire," he offered blandly, staring at Madara like he wanted to reach through his eyes and straight into his brain; figuratively for now, but probably literally at some point if that failed to give him the answers he wanted.</p>
<p>"Mm. Maybe rope." He wasn't untying the Senju anytime soon; wire was good for forcing a captive to stillness but muscles got tired eventually, had to loosen, and wire would eventually cut through skin and muscles until it found bone. Never mind what would happen if the Senju kept struggling -- which he would, because, one, much too stubborn, and two, the drugged heat he was in would have him desperate to find relief soon.</p>
<p>"I <em>don't </em>have rope!" Izuna proclaimed mock-cheerfully, and made a point of patting his kimono. "Jūrō-kun?"</p>
<p>The beta indeed produced a roll of -- was that <em>silk</em> rope.</p>
<p>Of fucking course. They'd been hunting for brides.</p>
<p>Izuna snatched it out of his hand, face pinched in disapproval, and turned pointedly away. "Hogtie?"</p>
<p>... Heels to ass seemed like a good idea; undoing the current arm tie a dubious one. He made a face. "Ankle to ankle, knee to knee?"</p>
<p>"He'll kick like a mule. Or we could do that and <em>then </em>hogtie..."</p>
<p>"I'll even sit still so you can tie a pretty diamond pattern in the ropes," Senju spat out, and managed to shift his leg aside far enough to brace a knee and try to roll Madara off him. Madara's stance was wide enough that he barely shifted, though. </p>
<p>"You <em>would </em>look pretty," Izuna replied, falsey cheerful. "Big rangy thing like you. Oh, hey, here's an even better idea. Rope handles!"</p>
<p>He leaned down to give the wires around Tobirama's upper arms a tug. </p>
<p>Madara growled, thoughtlessly annoyed. Izuna paused to stare at him. Like... Like. </p>
<p>His tea was still working. He hadn't tried to run off the other two betas, Hachirō's sibs. He wasn't dragging the Senju in some secluded cave or hollow. He wasn't even hard -- or not much.</p>
<p>Damn it.</p>
<p>Hissing his embarrassed annoyance between clenched teeth, Madara reached back and snatched up one of Tobirama's ankles, forced his knee to fold. The man snarled and kicked under him like a rabid dog, trying to throw him off; in the end Madara had to let his tied wrists go to wrap an arm around his throat and choke him half-swooned. Even then he growled, strangled and barely conscious.</p>
<p>Tobirama stirred as they finished up the first leg. Madara thought about tying them both. A single finger free was dangerous, with this man. A whole leg at his disposal? He might well crush someone's throat with a kick, choke them between his knees.</p>
<p>They'd have to come pretty close, though. Meaning that they would likely be trying something and therefore be asking for it... But he didn't want his people to die, no matter what.</p>
<p>They should have tied Tobirama's legs together first, so that his heels pressed against his crotch from the back and there could be no access. Madara realized with a sense of rising dread that tying his legs separately only made it easier to get between them. </p>
<p>He was going to have to hurt one of his people again, wasn't he.</p>
<p>"Niisan?"</p>
<p>Too late for the second leg; the Senju was awake in full again. Pale face flushed with fever or rage, panting harshly and teeth bared. Madara knew he would bite if given the chance, and not just to warn people off; he would fully commit to taking chunks of flesh with him.</p>
<p>"We did go looking for omegas," Izuna pointed out under his breath, staring down at his personal enemy.</p>
<p>"Look me in the eyes and tell me you want Senju Tobirama for a wife," Madara replied just as quietly, a brief spark of amusement blooming at the shocked horror on his baby brother's face.</p>
<p>"Give me a second," Izuna protested. "I'm still working through him being a breeder. How the <em>hell</em> did you hide that, Senju?"</p>
<p>Tobirama only answered with a silent sneer, his already narrow eyes gone to knife-slits. Izuna leaned down, voice going honeyed, purring. </p>
<p>"On the other hand, the children would be <em>terrifying</em>. Hey, this is starting to sound pretty good."</p>
<p>The spike of killing intent had Madara's eyes switch into the mangekyō without a single moment of thought. Tobirama didn't move an inch, but the cold rage already radiating from him went impossibly icy. </p>
<p>Madara tapped his knuckles against the back of the man's head, not even hard enough to do more than startle. Then he glared tiredly at his little brother and wished he could do the same to him, but it would look bad if they showed dissent. "You're not the one who'd have to fuck them into him."</p>
<p>"... And now I'm picturing it, ugh, never mind," Izuna -- lied? Madara blinked at him, stared, but his brother only shrugged airily and stood back up. "Ah, there's the signal. They're coming back. What's the plan?"</p>
<p>Madara... still didn't have one. If it had been just him -- </p>
<p>It wasn't. And he'd already made that choice. Family first, then clan. Never mind anything else.</p>
<p>A minute or so later he and his trussed-up prey were surrounded by Uchiha alphas and their siblings, a dozen pairs of burning eyes, ravenous and incensed. Old enough to mate and more than old enough to kill; young enough to be complete idiots about it. Elder Yoritomo's great-nephew Daichi especially looked on the edge of a frenzy. He should have been adopted into his cousins' slightly older litter a long time ago, but clan politics... Madara should have ordered it anyway; unbalanced as he was, the only reason Daichi-kun hadn't yet found his death on the battlefield was that he was also possessed of the luck of the damned.</p>
<p>He would order him away now if he thought for one second that the teenager would obey.</p>
<p>"Establish a perimeter," Madara ordered the group as a whole, before they could get too focused. "Fūma all gone?"</p>
<p>The reluctant reply came from Setsuko, still cradling her broken arm, her lone beta brother pressed against her shoulder. "Yes, Madara-sama. I sent off a few summons to follow them to make sure. Ah... Madara-sama?"</p>
<p>Sighing through his nose, Madara made a show of sitting up straight, still straddling the Senju's hips, his gloved hand appearing casual as it kept hold of the bare, wire-bound arms.</p>
<p>"<em>What</em>."</p>
<p>"It's..." </p>
<p>She didn't finish, shifting her weight from foot to foot like an untutored child, kneading at her injured arm over the splint. The other alphas looked less hesitant than she was, bodies leaning forward and greedy hunger and sparking rage in every twitch of their faces.</p>
<p>Izuna shifted his weight slightly, gathering as much attention as he could. (The betas looked his way, but the alphas were down to the last one attempting to stare Madara's captive down.) "Yes, this is the real Senju Tobirama," he drawled. "Yes, the scent is really his. Yes, he's going into heat -- the Fūma tagged him. If anyone else has rope, hand it over, he won't stay caught ten minutes in these. Otherwise, <em>please follow your orders</em>. "</p>
<p>Under Madara the Senju was fever-hot, but dangerously still, too -- watchful, waiting for an opening, not half dazed enough for the smell he let out. Would nothing cut through the cursed man's damn poise? </p>
<p>Ugh.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>A damn good thing it was, that the Fūma were long since out of hearing.</p>
<p>So far there were two camps amongst Madara's people; one wanted to have the whole fourteen of them take turns on the Senju, and then drag him back to the clan to be bred and bred until one of his pregnancies did him in.</p>
<p>The other one wanted the whole fourteen of them to take turns on the Senju, and then slit his throat right here in the forest.</p>
<p>The first of them who decided they might as well start in on the part they all agreed on and sort out the rest afterwards burst into Madara's space with hands reaching down <em>for Madara's prey,</em> and fell back howling, clutching his new palm-wide, second-degree burn.</p>
<p>"<em>I'll kill you</em>," Madara heard himself say. Oh, he was standing up. Bad. What if Tobirama escaped? </p>
<p>But he glanced down and Tobirama wasn't moving anymore than anyone else in the clearing; only craning his head back to stare. </p>
<p>"Niisan, your point's made," Izuna said, and his knees -- were they trembling a little? Everyone else had taken three steps back, or fallen. Huh. "Killing intent? Reel back a <em>tiny</em> bit?"</p>
<p>... He reeled it back. Not very much.</p>
<p>"None of you caught the omega," he rasped, something incandescent caught in his chest. "None of you <em>touch</em> the omega."</p>
<p>Fear and offense mixed on all of their faces, but for Setsuko and her sibling, apparently well-cooled down by the earlier broken arm; they shared a speaking glance.</p>
<p>"Madara-sama, that's... That's for concubines and wives, are you...?"</p>
<p>Madara stared. Was horribly tempted to lie, say yes.</p>
<p>He'd never liked to let his clanspeople indulge their baser, more cruel instincts; but he'd had his hands full stopping child-killing squads as it was. Forbidding any of the forms of battlefield rape? The hazy border between rape as a torture method like any others and rape as pointless humiliating revenge on a too-wily, now-captured enemy made it too easy for his people to nod their heads and do whatever they wanted behind his back. Everyone knew he didn't approve, but he didn't have the footing yet to force the issue. </p>
<p>But to do it right in front of his face, to an enemy before whom none of them would do anything but die--</p>
<p>Aah, that was the problem. Senju Tobirama terrified them, so they wanted him not merely dead, but ground into the mud and destroyed body and soul.</p>
<p>"What will happen," he said, forcefully slow, "if one of you breeds him, and he escapes right back to the Senju compound, that we have <em>never been able to breach</em>, with a litter of <em>sharingan-bearing children</em>."</p>
<p>A brief pause, flickers of hesitation. Mission children were the shame of other clans. No Uchiha worthy of the name would impregnate an outsider and allow them to whelp away from them.</p>
<p>"So we <em>kill </em>him before he--"</p>
<p>"Don't make me fucking laugh," Izuna interrupted; Madara almost blinked, almost broke eye contact with Daichi and his spittle and wildly spinning sharingan. There had been a surprising amount of venom in his little brother's voice.</p>
<p>"He's the reason our brides are gone!" Daichi snarled back. "Make him pay with his <em>cunt!</em>"</p>
<p>"I heard you on that, but you talk of killing him? Hah."</p>
<p>As the others clamored in agreement, Naohime pushed forward, her pretty little nose wrinkled in disgusted, eager hate. "Izuna-sama, <em>you </em>know he needs to die, so why--!"</p>
<p>"I know he needs to die because he's the most vicious, treacherous viper of them all, and you're going to tell me you'll get between his legs and live long enough to even wet your prick?" He scoffed, arms crossed; tossed his head with more annoyance than anger. "Next time tell me you want to trade spots on the battlefield, we'll see how long you last. I might not even be able to count down fast enough."</p>
<p>Naohime stiffened in offense, growled high-pitched and rolling. Izuna stared her down, looking perfectly composed.</p>
<p>"I agree with my elder brother. The only thing you'll do trying to fuck him will be to give him an opening to exploit. None of you are anywhere near good enough."</p>
<p>"Flattered," the Senju said from the ground where he still lay, a cheek resting on the damp leaves underneath. "If you could come to a decision soon, however--"</p>
<p>The effect his mocking tone had on the gathered alphas was -- Madara dropped down on one knee, right in his spine, painfully pinning him. The man gasped and flinched minutely as Madara ground down, teeth clenched to smother any sounds of pain.</p>
<p>"I don't know why you think it's smart to rile them up, Senju," Madara growled quietly, "but let me remind you, Izuna and I are certainly good enough to handle you."</p>
<p>Tobirama snarled at him over his shoulder, a brief flash of feral, unreasoning defiance; Madara snatched up a hold on his bound arms, certain that the man was about to cut himself to ribbons straining stupidly against them. But Tobirama went stiff and still, breathing forcefully through his nose.</p>
<p>Around them the Uchihas were all in battle stances, teeth and weapons bared, breathing hard in fury and lust. Izuna's hand was on his wakizashi. At least he hadn't drawn.</p>
<p>Izuna glanced up to meet Madara's eyes. He looked weary, and frustrated -- with Madara, with Tobirama, with the whole situation. Madara knew they didn't agree on what needed to be done in so many things, especially regarding the Senju clan as a whole, and even more regarding Hashirama and his... </p>
<p>Not his littermate. </p>
<p>"Okay, let's list our choices and their varied consequences," Izuna said, forcibly patient. "Omega in heat, alphas in rut, two problems that could well cancel each other!"</p>
<p>Hachirō and Naohime shifted from foot to foot hopefully. Izuna speared them with a bored, <em>don't-even</em> look.</p>
<p>"Potential <em>personal </em>issues: one, the demon will kill you in the middle of sex if you're not fucking him well enough, straight <em>after </em>sex if you slipped up with something he might use to escape, and some months after sex if he's still alive by that point, as he <em>will </em>track you down and get you when you've totally forgotten your life was forfeit the second you missed your chance to finish him off." </p>
<p>"So we secure him better," Naohime pointed out, tone gone forcefully calm and cultured, eyes greedy as they roamed over what she could see of Tobirama past Madara's own body. "The kimono might hide more weapons or just make him hard to grab, too, so take that away as well. He is not invincible, nobody is. I am not insulting your prowess as his rival, Izuna-sama, but I am saying that right now, we've got him. It's not an inevitability that he'll escape!"</p>
<p>"Potential issues for the clan," Madara interrupted. "One, bloodline theft. The Senju hate us and this one most of all. Even outside of forcing us and the children to become kin-killers, there is no way Uchiha-sired children will be treated well amongst them. <em>There will be no breeding</em>."</p>
<p>Daichi stepped forward once again, face twisted into a sneer; actually crouched down to meet Madara's eyes straight on, sharingan spinning and haunches tense, ready to pounce. "He's got other holes."</p>
<p>Madara <em>understood</em> Daichi, was the thing. All seven of his parents had died off in the year following the birth of his litter and then Senju child hunters had killed every single one of his littermates when none of them were old enough to toddle. The closest familial bond he had left was a single elder using him like a chess piece. The boy was sixteen and wanted to die, preferably bringing down a dozen Senju with him.</p>
<p>He understood, so he hit him with the palm of his hand and not his fist. The heavy slap to the face took the boy off his feet, shocking and unmistakable. Not a challenge to fight, alpha to alpha, but an older relative putting a brat back in his place.</p>
<p>An insult, to a blooded shinobi, but one he would be glad to sort out afterwards.</p>
<p>"Madara-sama," someone gasped -- he didn't see who, but he glared around anyway, jaw clenched tight. </p>
<p>"I tire of your attitudes," he growled. "I think I've made too many allowances letting you think it was a discussion, or that your hormones were in any way an acceptable excuse for the lack of discipline. None of you are touching my prisoner. Now set up a perimeter and wait for your orders."</p>
<p>Tense silence until everyone else had -- slowly, one by one -- moved away. And then it wasn't Izuna who broke the silence, it was Tobirama, which was worse -- only underlining the fact that he had witnessed this whole embarrassing debacle, and no doubt noted down every single point of contention and possible faultline to use against them later on.</p>
<p>"<em>Your</em> prisoner," was all he said, and tonelessly, but Madara flushed an ugly red anyway.</p>
<p>"I'm leaning toward political hostage," he said brusquely to his brother, ignoring the man. "Izuna?"</p>
<p>Izuna stared at him in silence for long enough that Madara started to feel uncomfortable; then he snorted, crossed his arms again. "Quick death, deep grave. No revenge if nobody knows."</p>
<p>Madara gave the woods around them a pointed look. A dozen of their own imbeciles knew, and they <em>would</em> brag of it. That ship had sailed.</p>
<p>"Niisan... If he sets foot inside our compound, he is never walking out. One of the elders <em>will </em>try something."</p>
<p>"If they go behind my back on this I will kill them myself! There are so many concessions we could get--"</p>
<p>Tobirama growled under him, chest-deep; Madara felt the man's sides shudder against his bracing knees.</p>
<p>"You're not -- not <em>using</em> me. Not against my brother, not against my clan. <em>Fuck</em> off."</p>
<p>... Was he breathing hard? Oh, damn.</p>
<p>Madara thought about carrying him back home as he rode out the effects of the drug. Several hours racing around spreading his heat scent through the countryside, more and more desperate as nobody took him up on it (unless his idiots went completely brainless and jumped Madara from the back, which he would not put past them at this point.) Thought about bringing him inside the Uchiha compound while <em>still</em> heated up, the terrifying demon of the Senju twisting and whimpering in his restraints. </p>
<p>The Elders would... </p>
<p><em>Ugh</em>.</p>
<p>"Why couldn't you <em>dodge</em> the drug," he muttered peevishly. "Aren't you supposed to be good at this? Izuna, there's a hollow under an old tree stump that way. Take my travel scroll--"</p>
<p>"Ugh," Izuna unconsciously echoed him, and leaned in to fish the scroll out of the back of his belt. "Do I have to? He could just nest with <em>leaves</em>. I can't believe the first nest I'm gonna build in my life is for <em>Senju </em>fucking <em>Tobirama</em>."</p>
<p>Madara flushed. "Not a full nest, what the hell! I want a blanket between his ropes and <em>sharp rocks on the ground</em>, what in <em>hell</em> made you think--"</p>
<p>Izuna gave him a hard, accusing stare, and snorted, turning his back pointedly. Scroll in hand, he stomped off, and then Marada was alone with his captive, barring the handful of beta guards still patrolling nearby and pretending tensely they noticed nothing.</p>
<p>If Tobirama tried to escape, it would be now.</p>
<p>"You won't be bred," he said anyway, as cold as he could. "I won't allow it. Do not try to entice any of them."</p>
<p>Tobirama laughed, short and harsh. "Do I need to?" </p>
<p>He raised his hips under Madara; his upper lip curled in disdain. </p>
<p>He didn't make contact with Madara's crotch, not with Madara sitting so high across his buttocks, but he didn't need to; the cloth shifting with their movements briefly pulled taut between his legs, tightening on the heavy line of Madara's prick. Madara's face caught on fire.</p>
<p>"Seems you're enticing yourself just fine." </p>
<p>If Tobirama knew then Madara had probably -- he must have <em>touched </em>him with -- with. <em>Argh</em>. "Another word and I'm gagging you!" he snapped through a spike of mortification.</p>
<p>He closed a fist on the back of the Senju's hair, pulled Tobirama's upper body half off the ground, and slipped a loop of rope around his upper body over the wires, making short work of tightening the whole affair. Arms doubly secured, he hauled him into a seated position by his upper arms, wrapped together under his shoulder blades, and slipped another length of rope around his throat from behind, passing it under the tied arms, knotting it there once, and keeping it going down to tie the other end to the ankle they'd managed to secure to his thigh.</p>
<p>"Will you bend your other leg yourself or do I have to force you?"</p>
<p>No response, only a nasty glare. The man's usually pale cheeks were flushed with fever, and his mouth -- fuller than usual, but twisted in a sneer.</p>
<p>"Oh well. Force it is."</p>
<p>... Like trying to force-feed a feral cat her medicine. The Senju had a single leg free and his spine forced straight, unable to bend forward lest he choke himself out, and still he twisted like a snake, flopping onto his side and then onto his back. He bit, and kicked high at Madara's chin, snatching at Madara's pants with his two free fingers to trip him, gathering chakra in his mouth for -- something Madara was not going to like, so he cheated, once again, dropped his whole weight between the man's legs to keep Tobirama from snaking aside and dodging the hand coming for his throat.</p>
<p>Back forcefully arched across his own arms, Tobirama's whole front was pressed against Madara's. His kimono pulled askew, unveiling too much of his breastbone. Madara pressed against his throat until the chakra guttered out, grinding down ruthlessly with his hips.</p>
<p>The small, close-mouthed whine Tobirama made, vibrating against his palm... </p>
<p>Ah. Damn.</p>
<p>He didn't let up. </p>
<p>"<em>Madara</em>," the Senju said -- moaned, gasped, something in between. The sudden fire in Madara's guts wanted him to lean down, bite his name off these lips -- keep rubbing against his crotch just to pull out more sounds from that throat for Madara to swallow. Unfocused red eyes danced over his face, glanced across Madara's own eyes a couple times and he could have caught him in a genjutsu then but -- well. That was how he knew the man was sufficiently distracted, wasn't it?</p>
<p>He lifted up, flipped him onto his side; bound the other leg, kicking in startled betrayal far too late to be of use. </p>
<p>It wasn't like Madara was interested in the Senju for himself. It was just the smell of his heat; the knowledge that he was dear to someone Madara had once held dear in turn. The animal sense of alpha pride when that unassailable fortress of a man went shivery and hazy-eyed under him. Senju Tobirama himself was nothing but an ice-blooded, lethal inconvenience.</p>
<p>He threw him across his shoulder and stood, and went to the hollow under the tree.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Izuna had blocked all possible exits from the tree stump with razor wire, save for one, making the gap between the umbrella of roots and the churned earth underneath a deadly spider's nest (not that it would stop Senju Tobirama escaping with Doton if he managed to shape his seals). Then he had proceeded to <em>make an actual nest</em>.</p><p>Not much of one. But Madara definitely counted more than a single blanket spread across the rocks. And -- was that Madara's good haori? Damn the brat.</p><p>"Don't make that face, it's not for the smell, it's for the reinforced lining," Izuna <em>lied</em>, like a <em>liar</em>. </p><p>And then smiled right in his face. Madara was briefly tempted to chuck Tobirama bodily at him, but then Tobirama tried to rear his upper body up and wriggle off his shoulder. Growling, Madara went down on his knees and crawled inside far enough to dump his burden.</p><p>"Get your fucking <em>hair </em>out of my <em>face!</em>" Tobirama snapped with unexpected exasperation, tried to roll onto his side to put less weight on his wrists, and immediately hissed his fury. "God, your fucking <em>stench</em>--" </p><p>"This is even funnier than I expected," Izuna mused from the entry. Madara snapped his foot back to kick him onto his ass, and threw the copious amounts of hair that had trailed after Tobirama back over his shoulder. Gravity being what it was, the bulk of it immediately tried to slip over again. </p><p>"Asshole. See if I share my hair ties now."</p><p>Izuna flounced off to go boss around their subordinates. Growling quietly to himself, Madara gathered the mass of his hair behind his head and twisted it far enough for some sort of messy half-bun, wasted ten long seconds finding a leather string to wrap around it. If he was going to get back under here to check on the omega he was not going to leave it free to tangle in trailing roots. Izuna would laugh too much.</p><p>Tobirama was staring at him with the weirdest look on his face, intense and baffled all at once. Madara frowned. "What?"</p><p>The man twitched, wrinkled his nose, looked pointedly away -- made a show of observing his prison as critically as possible. Huffing, Madara crawled backwards to the entry and sat there; his back to one of the biggest roots and one of his legs stretched as a mostly symbolic barrier across the opening in preparation for a long, uncomfortable night.</p><p>"... Will you be staring at me all night," Tobirama eventually asked, tone uninterested, barely like a question at all.</p><p>Madara sneered. "Of course not. I plan to turn my back and let you fiddle with your bonds totally unobserved."</p><p> A tense moment of silence; Madara's sharingan caught the hint of muscles rolling along the man's jaw.</p><p>There were muscles visibly shifting everywhere, honestly. (Even for a shinobi the man was exceedingly cut. A lot of exercise and maybe not quite enough food. An omega should be a little softer, he couldn't help but think. It made him wonder if Hashirama ever fed his sibling properly.) Madara had dumped him on his side, to spare his shoulders and wrists, but Tobirama was still pressing down on his upper arm, and the way each ankle was strapped to its corresponding thigh would put a strain on his knees and lower back. </p><p>"... Would you sit on the <em>other</em> side of the opening," Tobirama ... to say that he had suggested it would be a gross exaggeration but it was visibly what he had tried to make it.</p><p>The other side had a curtain of tiny, hair-grabbing hanging roots, and also Madara did not feel particularly accommodating. "You know, I believe I would not."</p><p>Tobirama's shoulders tensed, his upper body rolling with stiff, angry muscles -- teeth grinding, eyes flashing, scent... Madara breathed in discreetly. Damn. That was one frustrated omega. It was actually a little uncomfortable to refuse him, a small pinch that Madara ignored ruthlessly, still staring him down with bored disdain. </p><p>Tobirama deflated all at once, muttering something that sounded very much like 'never mind,' only with a lot more curse words interspersed through it.</p><p>Things went quiet after that, though Madara could feel his people circling the prison-nest, prowling their frustration in the growing dark. Vaguely he thought of sending a group back ahead but there was no telling what kind of trouble they might get into, or what the elders might see fit to order in his absence. He would have to send Izuna along to keep an eye on them, and... No.</p><p>Eventually Tobirama's breathing fell into a slow, deep pattern -- a meditation of some kind, maybe altered consciousness. Was he trying to control his body's reactions through the drugs? Madara couldn't help but be a little impressed. What kind of discipline did you need to have to force down a heat? Even a fake one like this.</p><p>He really must be made of ice all the way through. Ice and steel.</p><p>"Is he <em>asleep</em>?" Izuna mouthed at him when he joined him, ghosting out of the dark. Madara shrugged a single shoulder. No idea. Probably not, but probably turned inwards by quite a bit. "Daaamn."</p><p>"Mm."</p><p>Sitting on his heels, Izuna watched his enemy for a minute, face wiped of expression. Madara tried not to feel tired. He knew how much his little brother hated that particular Senju; finding out they weren't both betas after all, he wasn't sure how that might affect Izuna's pride. Omegas went into battle just as readily as other sexes but they weren't as a rule famed for their speed. Hashirama was much closer to the ideal -- a solid wall of a man, feet planted as he took a beating and shrugged it right off.</p><p>Hashirama also took care of his hair, for another thing... No wonder nobody had ever noticed, watching them side by side, that Tobirama might be the same sex as he was. Rangy and sharp-edged, with his hair a half-feral, hacked-off bristle; nothing inviting in him, nothing soft.</p><p>"You were going to say something else about issues for the clan?"</p><p>"--What?"</p><p>"Earlier you said, for one thing. What's the second?"</p><p>Oh, right. Madara sighed, trying to drag his mind back to his train of thought. It wasn't that difficult, though. The same argument he'd been having with the elders only this morning, and on and off all of the last, oh, six months. Only worse, because <em>Senju Tobirama</em>.</p><p>"We really only have three choices with him."</p><p>"Yeah?"</p><p>Madara unfolded three fingers, one by one. "Dead, hostage or breeder. Breeder is out."</p><p>"... Walk me through it. Wait, don't bother with dead, dead is obvious, my vote's still for dead."</p><p>Yes, it was... One of the most logical solutions. Certainly the safest one -- at least in the short term.</p><p>"Not that obvious. You know Hashirama's been holding back on us. But this is his last brother. Worse, his <em>baby</em> brother."</p><p>From his grimace Izuna didn't need a picture. Izuna was both partner-against-the-world and child-to-raise to Madara. He'd go feral if he lost that. He didn't want to even start to wonder how Hashirama might take the same happening to him. </p><p>"If nobody would know, that'd be one thing. But you know our imbeciles will brag. The rumor will have gone through the whole country by next week. Then the whole Senju clan would be up in arms, putting him up as a martyr, so unless we strike before they get worked up -- so, <em>tomorrow</em> -- we won't have gained any battle advantage worth storming them in haste. <em>Anyway</em>."</p><p>"<em>Ugh</em>," Izuna said, with feeling. "But at least he'd be dead!"</p><p>Madara gave him the long-suffering 'brat' look. Izuna crossed his arms grumpily.</p><p>"Anyway. Option two, hostage. He's the <em>clan heir</em>. There's no way Hashirama wouldn't deal. Just exchange him fast, so he doesn't have time to cause too much trouble."</p><p>"So," Izuna replied waspishly, "tomorrow?"</p><p>Madara swatted him.</p><p>"You laugh, but yes. Or there's option three -- the one the elders will go for, because they're greedy imbeciles who don't care what others have to pay in the name of their personal ambition," he growled darkly. </p><p>He didn't describe that one. He knew Izuna could imagine. A small, well-sealed cell, constant guards, a mattress. A revolving door of visiting alphas. (At least so long as he wasn't bred; no need to endanger the unborn children.)</p><p>"And then either he escapes with our children, escapes after <em>killing</em> our children, or somehow never escapes, which might be the worst one yet."</p><p>Izuna blinked, like he didn't get it, like Madara hadn't spent hours and days arguing against similar things. "... Huh?"</p><p>"What do you tell your children when they ask where their mother is?" he asked harshly. "That he's just next door, busy whelping his seventh litter in as many years in some dank hellhole, but that's okay, they don't have to mind because that's all he is, just some womb they crawled out of?" </p><p>He knew his eyes were red, he knew his hands clenched too hard on the root he used as a seat.</p><p>"Then again, with as many sires as they have siblings, they'll be put in with the orphans rather than claimed, anyway. Senju bastard <em>filth</em>. That's sure to instill some proper Uchiha pride in them!"</p><p>Izuna's hand landed on his forearm, squeezed; when Madara made himself look at him his little brother's face was twisted in some mix of worry and guilt.</p><p>"Niisan--"</p><p>"<em>Tell me I'm wrong</em>."</p><p>Izuna's wince deepened. "That... Ugh. Yeah. There really is no pride in being born like that."</p><p>Madara scoffed, arms crossed and shoulders tense with anger. "Better not be born at all, but the elders will go crazy for the chance to humiliate him and his clan, and paper it half-heartedly with bullshit about breeding up some Uchihas with his chakra levels and sensor ability or some other half-baked excuse. Like anyone will want to marry them freely when they get old enough, the clan whore's whelps--"</p><p>Cloth rustled quietly. Madara instantly went silent, sharingan blazing to catch every whisper of suspicious movement in the hollow under the tree.</p><p>"Can you stop detailing your angry fantasies about my future sex life in my hearing."</p><p>Madara spluttered. "Wh-- <em>what</em>?! I just said it wasn't good -- my <em>fantasies?</em> My <em><strong>fantasies?!</strong></em>"</p><p>"I'm sorry," Tobirama shot back, breath tight and short, "your angry, <em>very detailed</em> thoughts about my <em>sexual degradation.</em>"</p><p>"How did you make it sound even worse?! How--"</p><p>Izuna gave him a backhanded tap under the chin. Madara almost bit his tongue.</p><p>"Okay, rule one of Senju handling, don't even talk to him if you're going to let his shit-talking get to you. Senju, rule one of talking to my brother, I personally don't give a fuck if you end up taking it at both ends from every single person we have around here as long as I get to cut your throat at some point, so maybe try not to piss him off enough that he'll leave you alone with me."</p><p>Madara stared at his little brother, mouth open for an upcoming offended yell that was still looking for words to shape itself into. Then he snapped his teeth closed, gritted them for a second, and crossed his arms all over again.</p><p>Tobirama was still curled on his side, his upper body turned downward against the ropes so he could shield his throat and vulnerable belly. His face looked splotchy even in the rising dark; his eyes were oh-so-slightly too wild. </p><p>"How do you know that's not his plan," Madara growled back at Izuna past the offense. "He knows how to handle you, but not me. I'm not going anywhere, Senju. If you hate what you hear then don't eavesdrop."</p><p>Tobirama didn't bare his teeth, but his jaw worked hard and his nostrils flared; he exhaled with a forceful, disdain-filled breath.</p><p>Izuna tilted his head like a bird of prey, and then smiled, long and nasty. His hand flitted in a short series of hand signals; <em>watch, first lesson</em>.</p><p>"Oh, is the issue that you <em>don't</em> hate it? Your body is getting pretty heated, isn't it. It's repulsive to think about, but at the same time--"</p><p>"There's no but," Tobirama snapped back. "The idea of a single Uchiha's hands on me. No."</p><p>"How about in you?" He raised a hand with casual grace, curled and uncurled his fingers in a very clear -- where the hell had he learned that? Flushing, Madara restrained himself from slapping his hand back down. Betas were supposed to be sexually adventurous. He knew Izuna had experience with these things. It was fine. </p><p>... It wasn't fair that Madara had less experience than him, damn it! But as the clan head, he couldn't just -- ugh. Uuugh.</p><p>"Go ahead, say it. Lie that you're not empty and it doesn't ache and you don't want a big fat knot up your--"</p><p>"Izuna!"</p><p>His little brother rolled back on his heels, sighed theatrically. "Oh, you're such a buzzkill, Niisan. Can't have any fun."</p><p>"He's not sparing my virginal omega ears here, Izuna," Tobirama replied, voice dripping with disdain. "He's trying not to let you notice his erection."</p><p>Madara choked on nothing, started to rise, realized that would only expose his crotch more, and dropped back down hurriedly, leaning forward to swear at -- wait a second, he wasn't even hard right now! He glared down at his own crotch and then at the kami-cursed Senju, who had the absolute gall to stare back at him and <em>blink slowly</em>.</p><p>"<em>You</em>," he choked. "You--"</p><p>"Well," Izuna said drolly, and the honeyed poison had gone out of his voice in exchange for dry mockery. "You were right, you do have it well in hand."</p><p>Madara glowered suspiciously. "Was that an innuendo?"</p><p>"I would never," Izuna lied, like a liar, which he was and so it was unsurprising.</p><p>"Did you -- Izuna, did you make an innuendo about me <em>fondling myself</em> over the <em>Senju?</em>"</p><p>"Well, if you're bored I guess you could fondle him instead." His eyes were bright with hilarity. "My god, you're so lame, Niisan."</p><p>Madara glowered at him for a few very long seconds, mouth open to yell some more and then -- breathed out through his nose, relaxed his shoulders forcefully, and pointed away from the nest and into the woods. "<em>Get</em>. Now."</p><p>"Yes, Oniisama. Straight away, Oniisama."</p><p>Huffing, Madara reclined against the roots once again, arms crossed. The whole exchange had been ridiculous. Mostly his own fault. Ugh.</p><p>The Senju was watching him. Madara scowled back. "<em>What</em>."</p><p>Tobirama snorted, a quiet exhale he may not even have meant to be heard, and shifted a little on the blankets. Probably trying to make himself comfortable. He didn't retort with anything, so after squinting to make sure he wasn't working himself free of his bonds somehow, Madara allowed himself to relax a little. </p><p>A half-hour passed in silence, only the sounds of the rising night in the forest coming to trouble them, and quiet animal calls from his people. All clear. All clear. Good enough. </p><p>He kept swallowing back the same question, rising to the tip of his tongue and forcefully pushed back. Had Tobirama truly meant to marry the Uzumaki siblings alongside Hashirama? </p><p>It wasn't any of his business. It was going to be scandalous enough when it came out as it was; it coming out after they were wedded or even after there were children would have been even worse. (Whose children would they have been really?) And if Tobirama had been looking forward to it, it might break the quiet between them and provoke him to more cold rage -- or even active attempts to fight as his heat rose. </p><p>Madara could understand Hashirama's loneliness; he didn't want to lie and say he wouldn't have been tempted at all, had Izuna been another alpha. But damn. How had they been planning to hide it? You would need to be an Akimichi in winter garb to even have a chance to camouflage a full-term pregnancy...</p><p>... What was that noise?</p><p>... Oh. </p><p>Madara suddenly understood why Tobirama had wanted him to sit on the other side of the exit; right now he was exactly behind him and had a perfect view on... things. </p><p>Slowly growing damp spot. Thighs straining to press together. Quick forceful breaths through his nose, face pressed into the blankets to muffle even that. </p><p>The Senju wasn't moaning, at least. But the rope around his neck had to be half choking him. </p><p>He smelled good. Like iron and copper on your tongue, like wet and spices and yet nothing like that, something that didn't have words. Like endless nights of pleasure and exhaustion, mind gone, floated away.</p><p>Madara drew a quick grid in the dirt between his feet, called quietly into the woods; "Izuna, black or white?", and for another twenty minutes or so they played an easy game of go, mostly from memory. </p><p>When Izuna lost, Madara erased the board and traced it again; and then the Senju cleared his throat. There hadn't been any panting for a little while, so he looked over; met Tobirama's eyes. </p><p>Met Tobirama's eyes. If only for a fleeting second. They were heavy-lidded with tiredness, a little damp. The man had rolled mostly onto his back, one knee drawn up to shield himself and one fallen to the side, trembling.</p><p>"Yes?"</p><p>"Don't suppose you have water," the Senju forced out, voice rough with reluctance more than thirst.</p><p>"I only have it if you won't spit it back at me as water kunai and the like," Madara replied warily, even as he pulled up the gourd hanging from his belt. "You would forfeit any water at all for the next day."</p><p>Tobirama emitted a growl that was almost closer to a frustrated whine, cut brusquely off in the middle. "I won't," he rasped, and his head rolled back to stare powerlessly at the tree trunk over him.</p><p>He could still be faking. Madara engaged his sharingan, and moved in.</p><p>It was... Oh, it was really difficult to do that in a way where he didn't hover over the Senju's forcefully offered body. Madara wouldn't even have to spread the omega's knees; they weren't pressed together to start with. That was a trap, right? He couldn't figure out how but it probably was. Scowling, he shuffled to the side, lifting the gourd. The kimono was even more ruffled than it had been earlier, open almost to the man's belly button and baring too much clavicle. The rope had left dark marks around the base of his throat; the face tattoos curled a little under the chin before the lines stopped.</p><p>He was, Madara admitted privately, a rather striking man. Nothing like Hashirama's classically handsome good looks, but -- more fey, a fox face almost, pretty like a good blade. </p><p>Tobirama looked up at him and for a second stopped breathing, and his hips -- Madara ignored that. </p><p>It had been nothing anyway. A twitch. A muscle spasm. He offered the gourd, face frozen in a scowl. Tobirama's face tightened like he was about to try to bite anyway in pure humiliated rage, and then he closed his eyes, breathed out, drank. Madara didn't need to pace him so he wouldn't make himself sick; he did it on his own. </p><p>"... Thanks," he said reluctantly when he was done, face turned away but watching from the corner of his eye anyway. </p><p>When Madara started shuffling backwards to get out, he scrunched his eyes closed and his toes curled hard. Madara tried not to wonder how much longer until he started begging to be touched-- </p><p>"Ah," Tobirama breathed out, and turned his head a little on the blanket. "Wait." Madara paused, shoulders tensing.</p><p>"Senju, I told you I won't--"</p><p>"The Fūma are back."</p><p>Madara flushed in embarrassment. Then he swore. The man's sensing ability had to be a <em>mess</em> right now -- had he been uncompromised Madara could not have sneaked up so closely behind him earlier, stealth or no stealth -- but Madara still knew better than to dismiss it entirely.</p><p>Popping out from under the roots, he whistled an alarm call; was immediately answered by three chakra flares, then four, then -- </p><p>Then about four or five Fūma nin started circling between the trees where there should damn well have been a patrol.</p><p>The thought that if Madara went to meet them, Tobirama would be conveniently gone when he went back flitted through his mind. </p><p>It'd be too obvious to everyone if he just left his post -- but there should have been Uchiha guards over there. They might not be dead yet. Flickering through hand signs, he spat darts of pale fire at the assailants still hiding in the branches. A couple of pained yells rose. If he gave chase now--</p><p>Izuna flashed through, sword trailing a swift silver afterimage as he swept through the few assailants who'd gotten that far; kicked someone who tripped and stumbled through the bushes.</p><p>Uchiha Katsuhito, blood all over his forehead and a hand holding onto his open pants, and on his heels Uchiha Naohime, limping hard and still fumbling with her kimono.</p><p>"Are you <em>joking?!</em>" Madara snarled, relief giving way to rage in a hot flash. "Are you -- you were fucking around on <em>guard duty</em>." He snatched a kunai from the air, sent it flying back to the shape he'd caught from the corner of his sharingan; it found a Fūma throat. </p><p>"If you had just let us," Naohime spluttered back, and committed the mistake of limping her way closer to the nest.</p><p>Madara had her down flat on the ground in the next second, a foot across her back. He caught Katsuhito by the hair next, flung the beta down in the leaves off to the side, barked, "<em>Guard!</em>" at him, furious enough for his raw chakra to crackle purple-white in the dark.</p><p>They were both injured -- not enough to count them out but enough to keep them from managing safely on their own. This was the center point, which Madara had to hold because more injured clanmates might come looking for shelter. <em>Fuck</em>.</p><p>And he had gone and broken Setsuko's arm, too. </p><p>What he wouldn't give to just use his Susanoō -- stomp them all flat and be <em>done</em>, but it was ridiculous overkill for the situation and would light up a beacon for miles around. Plus he would have to raze the woods to the ground to be sure he'd gotten them all, and might catch his people in the backlash. Growling out his rage with each breath, he jumped up on the tree stump, brought down a few trees with concentrated fire arrows to widen his field of vision, and waited with teeth gritted to be attacked again.</p><p>A giant shuriken came at him, predictably. He melted it in mid-air, snatched a second with disdainful ease and used it to parry the third, sending it clanging into the ground. The strings attached to it, he sent a burst of lightning down through.</p><p>"Pincer!" Izuna called out, a few seconds before a clump of Fūma nin jumped backwards out of the trees, herded by Madara's little brother and three other Uchihas. </p><p>Katsuhito gamely started to move forward; Madara whistled him down, and incinerated the lot. </p><p>"Show-off!" Izuna called, laughing, like he hadn't led the enemy there knowing exactly what would happen. Madara snorted. </p><p>"Smother that before the forest catches," he ordered, turning his shoulder pointedly to scan the woods in the other direction.</p><p>"Yes, Oniisama, of course Oniisama -- huh."</p><p>The dull thumping sound of a doton turning the earth to bury burning corpses and trees under a loose layer of topsoil resonated in the woods. By the time Madara looked again his brother was gone from view. A bolt of unease went through Madara, but Izuna hadn't left any sign of the direction in which he'd gone, and he had left his improvised squad behind. Madara lifted his hand, ordering them to hold position for now.</p><p>Noises of combat kept coming from several places, and then another two Uchihas joined them, on high alert and liberally blood-splattered. </p><p>"Naoki, Naomi, guard." Either they would finally manage to shame their alpha sibling into behaving, or they had known what she was doing and not cared, in which case he wasn't trusting them out of his sight. "The rest of you, go and assist."</p><p>Uchiha shinobi were strong, but these particular ones were also young and idiots. He wished he could just throw Tobirama over his shoulder and take them into a fighting retreat. Or lock them all up in safety and go deal with all the Fūma himself. </p><p>Honestly, he wished Tobirama would escape already and take himself out of his hands. How long was he going to have to wait?</p><p>"<em>Retreat!</em>"</p><p>Izuna whipped through the trees, the last of their clanspeople on his heels; threw a body straight at him -- casualty to carry to safety? -- Madara caught it in both arms (clansman, hurt, don't aggravate); whirled, leaped to the next tree, and caught a faceful of the scent.</p><p>Then something exploded behind him. The force shoved him out of the tree.</p><p>Tree trunks rained around them, branches and loose earth. His ears rang. Tobirama's wrists were still tied together, only they were now in front of him. (From the blood on them he'd loosened the ropes around his upper arms and shifted the wrist-to-elbow ties to give himself enough slack.) </p><p>Naoki was carrying his alpha sister; Katsuhito had joined back with his own sibs. Daichi was slung over someone's shoulder, knocked out cold (or worse. He hoped not worse.)</p><p>Madara's good haori was still in that damned nest. <em>Ugh.</em></p><p>"I am going to <em>murder </em>you, Senju," he hissed as he threw himself through the woods, tightening his grip on the man in his arms. "When did you even--"</p><p>"You're <em>welcome</em>, Niisan!" Izuna shot back as he jumped past. "You can't take your eyes off him for a goddamn second, I know I told you that! He swapped himself out with a rock the second you turned away, I bet!"</p><p>"A hedgehog, actually," Tobirama sniped. "I figured you'd appreciate being with your own kind."</p><p>Madara growled, looking down at him -- frowned. The man wasn't making a move to get free, stiff as a length of wood in Madara's grasp. His eyes looked glassy, focused on nothing. (Certainly not on Madara's face.) His arms weren't bleeding that badly, his legs were free, and it didn't smell meaty the way a hemorrhaging wound did anyway -- had Izuna hit him in the head?</p><p>... It sure smelled of other things. Madara landed on a tree a little harder than he could have, jarring the Senju; the man's head rolled back a little, eyes fluttering almost closed, face woodenly expressionless. </p><p>Madara was pretty sure he had stopped up his breathing. To keep from moaning or from breathing in Madara's scent he wasn't sure, but either one was bad.</p><p>"How bad is it?" he asked, lowering his voice so the wind would cover it. Tobirama shivered, shoulders coming up defensively; then he sneered, lifting his bound hands to parade the bloodied, displaced ropes, the way most of his fingers had enough slack to at least attempt hand seals. </p><p>"You still have your eyes, don't you?" he snapped venomously.</p><p>Madara felt himself ice over in a rage. "You do <em>not</em> threaten my eyes," he snarled back, still quiet but rattling in his chest. "I will break your neck and let the wild dogs have your <em>corpse</em>. It is not on me that you were so incompetent escaping!"</p><p>The Senju froze, staring at him -- at his chin, really, but the look on his face... <em>'Oh.'</em> Oh indeed, but now they were surrounded by running Uchihas and Madara would murder Tobirama and his beloved idiot of an older brother twice over before he allowed the White Demon to plow through them.</p><p>Tobirama subsided, seeming to huddle without moving at all; he closed his eyes, even, and it was strange to be so close and not be surveilled.</p><p>His face was drawn, pearling with sweat under the moonlight; heat radiated through his clothes, through Madara's gloves. Madara could see much too much of his chest -- the glimpse of a pebbled nipple, clenched abdominal muscles.</p><p>With all the bumps and bursts of speed of a treetop chase it would have been easier for Tobirama to let himself slump against Madara's chest, to let his head rest against Madara's shoulder, but this he seemed entirely unwilling to allow himself.</p><p>"How bad?" Madara asked again after a minute had passed, terse and no-nonsense.</p><p>"If you shifted -- your forearm -- three inches down." He paused; tried to make it sound deliberate. Madara scrunched his eyebrows.</p><p>"Uh huh?"</p><p>"I'd be sitting directly on it. And I would have come already."</p><p>Madara's foot skidded on wet moss, chakra failing to catch a steady hold, and he almost propelled the two of them face first against a trunk.</p><p>The <em>noise</em> Tobirama made as he was jostled --</p><p>"--Niisan?"</p><p>For a second he had a silvery head of hair lolling against his neck, the Demon of the Senju hissing between his teeth and coincidentally exhaling against Madara's chin.</p><p>"That breeze jutsu," he told his brother, unable to tear his eyes away for a too-long moment. "From the Yamamoto. Use it. We need to disperse--"</p><p>Izuna glanced down at his rival, made a face. His hands flicked through a short series of hand seals; he blew at them, wafting the heavy scent away.</p><p>The Senju shivered from head to toes. Argh. </p><p>He was so <em>tense</em> in Madara's hold, tendons in sharp relief, fingers grabbing white-knuckled at the opposite wrist. So tense and so feverish and Madara had a lot of clanspeople trained against torture who would be sobbing right now, trying to tear his clothes off, offering every secret they'd ever overheard and every promise and oath they could come up with.</p><p>"Izuna, the pursuit?"</p><p>Izuna flashed him a couple hand signals. Losing ground, running into traps; good. </p><p>... Good. </p><p><em>Ugh</em>.</p><p>He checked on the other Uchihas in a quick glance; a few had detached to lay false tracks but the bulk of them were racing alongside the same path. Madara was one of the last, but not the last. He nodded at Izuna, tilted his head to indicate Rokurō behind him, made the 'switch' gesture. </p><p>Good enough. <em>Not </em>good enough, but there wasn't really a better choice, was there? He wanted to yell and throw his hands in the air and spend the next fifteen minutes swearing and cursing the gods. That mission with Sabi and Kijitora and the stolen cows suddenly didn't look so mortifying anymore, did it.</p><p>The next time he landed, he made sure to do it hard. Tobirama's back straightened like a released crossbow.</p><p>And again. And a third.</p><p>"<em>--Madara</em>."</p><p>God, he sounded raw -- breathless, choked. Angry, too.</p><p>"I don't care if you come," Madara said, staring straight ahead. "So long as you don't piss on me that still won't be the worst thing I've ever had to deal with."</p><p>A long, tense pause -- and then Tobirama said drolly, "Well, that almost quelled my heat single-handedly."</p><p>When Madara blinked down at him, he found his face turned just the slightest bit away, his mouth pinched like... Oh, he was laughing. Inwardly. Madara had not been trying to be amusing; he attempted to feel mocked, offended. He did not succeed, something in his belly tightening, warming like banked coals at his enemy's, his prisoner's loosening shoulders.</p><p>"Glad you find my pain amusing," he grumbled back, and had another moment of doubt in the efficiency of his tea when Tobirama let his head roll back on his shoulder to flick him a heavy-lidded smirk. </p><p>"It <em>is</em> amusing," Tobirama confirmed, eyes gleaming like an asshole, which he very likely was. "It's -- <em>ngh</em>."</p><p>Ah. Merry time over. The Senju's face closed off once again, tightened in something like pain. </p><p>That wafting breeze jutsu of Izuna's wasn't going to help for long when the heat scent kept getting stronger, and the Fūma were still on their tail, much closer to their own territory than the Uchihas were. Denning up any time soon would... He thought back to the territory between them and Uchiha land, rivers and cliffs and anything that might provide an advantage, or a good hideout. Not much of it to be found. </p><p>He whistled for the group to put on a burst of speed. At this point -- fewer shinobi, several of them injured -- the best solution was to get as close to home as they possibly could. A little more exhaustion was worth it if the trade-off was assistance from nearby patrols.</p><p>He set his arm more firmly under the Senju's thighs and resolved to ignore him entirely. And possibly not breathe too much.</p><p>--</p><p>They were maybe another twenty minutes from the nearest patrol route when Tobirama went from a dead fish to a live eel in his arms. </p><p>A sudden full-body twist knocked Madara out of his path and made him lose his grip onto the man. Madara twisted in the air, kicked hard against a protruding branch, and threw himself at the falling Senju, sharingan blazing in startled offense.</p><p>Izuna had whirled as well, managing to snatch an ankle in passing. The three of them landed with a crash, flattening a bush, rolled and (Tobirama's arms still hadn't been freed; he hadn't been controlling that fall) Madara pinned him by the shoulders face down in leaf litter, angry and baffled all at once, and then the man <em>screamed</em>. </p><p>Frustrated rage and pain, a throat-tearing yell, a snarl that ended on a sob. </p><p>"What the fuck!" Izuna tried to catch his other ankle as Tobirama kicked, tried to curl up. "What kind of shit escape--"</p><p>Madara could have told him it hadn't been any kind of escape. Madara had been the one pretending not to notice a thing when Tobirama's core muscles quivered, when he made tiny noises through his nose, when the cloth between the back of his thighs and Madara's forearm grew damp -- when he panted, briefly sated, briefly dazed, and went loose for all of ten endless seconds. Izuna had only needed to ventilate them here and there.</p><p>The Senju snaked backwards out from under Madara, tried to back into Izuna. His hips rolled, angling up. Snarling, Madara caught him by the back of his kimono, shoved him face down into the leaves once again, and slammed his full weight at an angle atop him, pressing his own side down across the waist and shoulder blades.</p><p>"Oh," Izuna said very quietly. Tobirama was raking his bound hands in the leaves, trying to catch a grip. Madara slipped an arm under his neck and grabbed them and brought them back in, before the man could make himself bleed worse.</p><p>"Well, that took about three hours longer than I thought it would," Madara said between his teeth as around them their clanspeople came back to assist or just to gape, caught by surprise. Izuna jerked, went around on hands and knees to see both of their faces, his eyes wide with shock. </p><p>"I -- shit, I'd almost started to think... <em>Shit</em>."</p><p>The omega let out a low, tortured whine. Madara rumbled back, breathing through clenched teeth. </p><p>Then another alpha landed in the grass ten steps away. Madara's vision went mangekyō-red. </p><p>His sib got to the threat first, a hard tackle that sent -- Hachirō? Was this Hachirō? -- flying back to land on his ass far enough that Madara couldn't smell him anymore. Growling endlessly, he shifted to crouch over the omega, eyes taking in all the threats, all the challenging litters. He --</p><p>He'd taken his tea. That morning, when he got up. </p><p>It was approaching five AM. Oh hell. No.</p><p>"Drink, wash your face," Izuna ordered, shoving his gourd at him. "Rokurō, you're in charge, take your idiot brother and all the alphas and the injured back to the compound -- go for the patrol if it's near, otherwise send a runner to give them a heads up and bring the rest straight through. Shichiko, Setsuna, you're on perimeter watch. Wide perimeter, I don't want to hear or smell you. Go." </p><p>Madara washed his face. The water was cold. Under him Tobirama had quieted, though he still made disturbing tiny noises whenever he drew breath.</p><p>("Are they sure," Naoki whispered, perched in a tree right at the edge of where Madara could still read his lips, with his activated sharingan refusing to let a single detail slip away. "The Fūma could--"</p><p>Rokurō snorted under his breath, gave Izuna a last nod and started turning away. Voice low, almost ignorable over Tobirama's gasping breaths. "At this point the Fūma will be getting up close and personal with a Susanoō or two."</p><p>"But the ghost will escape, guarantee!"</p><p>"The ghost won't be going anywhere with Madara-sama's knot up his slit, now let's go before he blows into a full rut while you're still here <em>yapping about the omega he hunted</em>. Get moving.")</p><p>... Of course they thought Madara was all big words and no follow through. The way their eyes lingered over Tobirama's shuddering form. The way they dragged their feet. He really had slacked on their discipline, hadn't he. He'd failed to supervise their trainers, if they could all let their hormones sweep them away and shrug it off, because hey, it was a <em>good excuse</em>.</p><p>There were <em>many </em>other alphas their age with the same amount of lost littermates who had chosen not to take part in this stupid sortie, so Madara guessed they'd managed to give him a list of remedial students right there. Oh, he'd planned to punish them anyway, but...</p><p>"That's your plotting evil face. May I remind you not to plot evil on your clanmates?"</p><p>"You may not," Madara replied haughtily, and forced himself up on his feet, standing straight. "So long as they survive it in one functional piece I may plot <em>and </em>enact as much evil as I damn well please."</p><p>Izuna gave a brief, startled cackle before his eyes went back to the Senju slowly curling into a ball in the dead leaves between the two of them. Madara sobered up.</p><p>"We've got to find another nest," Izuna said first, and he sounded quieter than Madara would have expected, more disturbed. </p><p>Madara nodded, made himself scan the woods instead of staring at the Senju. "Just dig one. A quick doton. We don't care if it's well-hidden at this point, if they managed to track us that far I'll end up using my mangekyō either way."</p><p>"Mm, okay."</p><p>"We're using your travel scroll this time though."</p><p>"--Aw, come on, Niisan!" Izuna protested as he joined his hands in a Snake hand sign, dug a deepening trench between some bushes. "Mine's smaller and it's mostly changes of clothes, I don't have extra blankets!"</p><p>"You've got a bedroll."</p><p>"Yes! <em>One!</em> It's gonna stink for months!" </p><p>"Truly?" Madara mused, making a show of scanning the forest around them, eyebrows up unconcernedly. "Like my good haori?"</p><p>"... Um."</p><p>"I guess it's good we had to leave it behind, then."</p><p>"Ugh, <em>okay</em>, okay." Izuna finished roofing the trench and pulled a scroll out of his kimono top. "Goodbye, bedroll. You'll be missed."</p><p>He went into a crouch and disappeared down the tunnel he'd created. Madara checked on the Senju with a quick glance, unsurprised to find him curled on his side -- more surprised not to find his hands between his legs. Dazed, panting hard, he was painstakingly unwrapping the wire digging bloody furrows into his forearms with his teeth.</p><p>Sighing, Madara stepped up to him, went down on one knee, and caught his hand to draw it away. A sharp slice of kunai and the wire was falling off. Tobirama blinked up at him like a drunk, lagging a second behind, and squinted.</p><p>"You never stop, do you."</p><p>The Senju only blinked some more. Sighing again, Madara drew out his gourd and lifted it to the man's lips. He made a little sound of surprise and accepted it without even a flicker of wariness.</p><p>When he rolled onto his back and reached to hold the gourd himself, Madara let him, patiently guiding his second hand to it for a better grip. Then he took the long maiden's kimono sleeve he'd slashed off and wound a wide strip of it around them.</p><p>He had to admit, watching the Senju stare at his bound wrists with confused betrayal was pretty entertaining.</p><p>He used the rest of the cotton sleeve to give the Senju's bloody, dirty forearms a perfunctory wipe-down. No need to stain all their things, after all. "Are you done drinking for now?" </p><p>"... Mn."</p><p>Gourd secured at his waist once more, he picked up his prisoner -- damn but he was tall, spilling over Madara's arms on both sides, this was really annoying. What was even more annoying was the way he tried to turn to wrap one of his legs around Madara, which -- <em>no</em>. Madara threw him across his shoulder and stomped his way to the trench, eyes flitting around to pick up traces of their passage -- disturbed leaves, fresh earth, specks of blood. Someone was going to have to clean that up. Someone whose name sounded remarkably like 'Izuna.'</p><p>"Is it ready?"</p><p>It was almost pitch black inside at first, but past the first bend there was a single candle flickering in a roughly-dug alcove. Izuna's bedroll took up a lot of the available floor space, but so did a pile of his clothes -- many without any Uchiha mon on it. He did go incognito into villages a lot more often than Madara did, so it wasn't purely vanity, but Madara snorted pointedly anyway, even as he shrugged off his burden. </p><p>"Did you seriously tie him up with <em>cotton</em>?" his little brother asked, watching the terrifying wraith of the Senju curl on his side, knees up, like a pillbug, and press his face against the thin padding masquerading as a pillow. Tobirama's bound hands were pressed to his chest, as if cold or scared, an utterly defensive gesture.</p><p>"One, we're running low on rope and two, he just tried to hump me, I think he's a bit too distracted for that to matter. I'll..." Madara made a face, scratched behind his ear. "It might be easier to just allow him to, uh. Touch himself. I don't want to hear him wailing all night." </p><p>Izuna scowled, opened his mouth to protest; and the shivering Senju rolled onto his front to press a shoulder against his thigh, a quiet whine caught in his breath. The back of his neck was exposed by his bowed head and the mussed kimono, and -- ah. Madara had left a bruise indeed, in the shape of his teeth. It was nice and dark now.</p><p>"Izuna," Tobirama whispered, shoulders trembling, and butted his head against his rival's hip. Madara flushed, looked away.</p><p>"I'll. Ah." Should he offer to leave instead? No, he. God it felt odd. Izuna wouldn't impregnate Tobirama either way, and if the man was asking -- Izuna didn't like or pity him of course but there was still something intense and strange in his reactions to that particular Senju, something <em>personal</em>. Maybe Madara should--</p><p>"<em>Fuck!</em>"</p><p>A flash of movement in the corner of his eye -- bright-thin-sharp, his brother's thigh -- arteries -- he pounced without thinking, his hands joining the fray. Another second and his brother was safely behind him, the Senju pinned by the throat as Madara gathered fire-tinged chakra in his mouth, his free hand shaping a half-Tiger seal.</p><p>"<em>I'll kill you.</em>"</p><p>"Niisan, wait--"</p><p>"He was going to kill you!" God, his brother bleeding out -- thigh gushing in strong pulses, emptying out in minutes, having to watch him -- his baby sibling, his last living family, his--</p><p>"Hostage," Tobirama rasped, hair all over his face and half-swooned and still managing to look disdainful. "Not -- <em>stupid</em>."</p><p>Madara's mouth was full of fire begging to be released, Madara's mind was full of terror-hate. He could only tighten his hand, dizzy with barely leashed furor.</p><p>"Debatable," Izuna said from behind him, tone jaw-clenched light. "My brother's been underestimating you the whole night, you seriously would have had another chance at some point. You could have waited."</p><p>Tobirama bared his teeth. "M' sick and <em>tired </em>of waiting. Fucking <em>hurts</em>."</p><p>Izuna placed a hand between Madara's shoulder blades, warm and solid. "Were you planning to jerk off while holding a kunai to my leg? Yeowch, that would have worked out nicely. Niisan, if you kill him after telling me all night that I'm not allowed to kill him I'm going to be annoyed."</p><p>The Senju had the gall to look disgruntled. Madara's hand was on his throat, and his mouth was twisted in a goddamned <em>pout</em>. "Could have -- knocked you out."</p><p>Izuna snorted. "Uh <em>huh</em>. Sure. Here, Niisan, steel wire should be okay if it's over cloth. But seriously tie his legs again or he'll summon a giant turtle with his big toe or some shit." </p><p>Taking the wire, Madara managed a grunt of agreement.</p><p>"And <em>stop underestimating him</em>."</p><p>"Oh, <em>that</em> is not happening again," he promised grimly. "Go clean up the outside, check on the lookouts. I'll handle him." </p><p>"... Fine. But I'll be back." Reluctantly, his little brother crawled out. Madara unspooled the wire, eyes narrowed as he stared the Senju down.</p><p>"On your front, hands up by the wall."</p><p>He had the strong feeling that the man had another smart quip on the tip of his tongue, but -- the heat or the exhaustion -- the Senju only glowered, lip curling up at the corner in disdain. He didn't move. </p><p>"Izuna was right," Madara mused. "I've been <em>coddling</em> you."</p><p>Catching an ankle, he flipped the man onto his front like a pancake, sliced through the wide, maidenly obi in a single sweep. Was that -- tch. "More explosive tags, of course." The thin rope crossing around his shoulders, behind his back to tie back the long sleeves -- also cut off. It zinged along his kunai like the unassuming hemp had been braided with iron. "Garrote? Tch."</p><p>A hand fisted in pale hair, he sliced along the shoulder tops of the kimono, and whipped it off entirely. </p><p>Ripping the clothes off an omega in heat -- it felt wrong, too appealing and too dangerous. Pale shoulders unveiled by force, the dips and swells of strong muscles. Rope burns and scars. Secret dimples on his lower back, just above the waistband of unmaidenly pants, and for a second Madara was angry enough -- curious enough -- that he almost yanked those off, too. He'd forgotten a little, somehow, that those were there, that Tobirama wasn't dressed in full as he should have been.</p><p>Tobirama had gone stiff under him, back arched, head bowed, as if barely holding himself back from moving, from... (The shivers going down his back, the way his flanks twitched, his ribs moved with a too-fast breath, the glimmer of sweat on his skin.)</p><p>He was really, <em>really</em> close to arching up his hips, to offering himself. </p><p>Madara set a hand on his waist, gloved palm down, fingers curving around the side, and pushed him down flat.</p><p>"I am not taking you," he reminded someone, but he wasn't too sure who. His voice had gone quiet, resonating oddly in his ears. "Hands on the wall, omega."</p><p>A long moment of stillness broken only by gasping breaths, long shivers, and then for the first and probably last time Senju Tobirama obeyed him, painstakingly pulling his bound hands out from under him to stretch, palms pressed to the rough wall.</p><p>"... Good," Madara couldn't help but praise, and gave the hip under his hand a rough pat.</p><p>He should undress him in full, honestly, if he wanted to be entirely sure. How likely was it that the man carried throwing needles in his fundoshi, or something like that? Not very, but Madara had promised Izuna he'd take it seriously, and with that man he was finally figuring out that you never knew.</p><p>He patted down the outside of his legs to check for weapons, thorough and brisk, then went back up the inside -- Tobirama's legs clenched on his hand, trapping it at mid-thigh. </p><p>"Senju. Stop. Release me."</p><p>He could have pulled free easily, but it would only have been more stimulation. </p><p>It could be another manipulation. Trying to scare him off being thorough.</p><p>It could be genuine. It could be both at once.</p><p>(His flesh was so warm, even through leather gloves and pants.)</p><p>"<em>Fuck</em>," Tobirama sobbed, and forced his knees apart a couple inches. "Fuck, shit, touch m-- stop touching, stop touching if you won't fuck me -- <em>ah.</em>"</p><p>A spate of swearing, face pressed hard against the mock-pillow.</p><p>"I need to check," Madara said once he was quiet again. "It can be visually or it can be by hand, but it's going to happen."</p><p>"Visu-- oh." Tobirama craned his neck to look at him, eyes a little wild. "You. Taking off my pants?"</p><p>"If you cooperate I'll put them back on." A flicker of... something sharp behind the haziness of his eyes, a strange hesitation. The sharingan couldn't read it, but it caught it all the same. Madara's brow furrowed. "Only if you tell me what I'm going to find, though. You wouldn't make it a <em>good</em> surprise if anyone got that far, would you?"</p><p>Tobirama stared at him for a couple of seconds and then started swearing again, kicked back haphazardly, more to mark his annoyance than as a serious attempt to hurt him. </p><p>"Go to <em>hell, </em>Uchiha. Senbon," he capitulated. "Neurotoxin. Don't touch me, don't -- it'll tug between my <em>legs</em>, I can't -- just fucking cut it off at this point, just. Fuck. Damn it all to <em>hell</em>."</p><p>... Well.</p><p>Madara cut his pants off along the outside seams.</p><p>The smell caught him like a slap in the nose. The cloth was soaked through when he pulled it free. He tried not to look, but the brace of senbon was tied high around his inner thigh, the thin leather stained. He cut the outside of the strap, threw it all over his shoulder by the exit and fuck, but the man was so <em>bare </em>before him, only the narrow rope of a fundoshi breaking the expanse of offered skin. Around his hips and then down his ass crack, and if Madara slipped a finger under there and tugged --</p><p>He flipped the Senju over once again, without warning, gave his front a quick, clinical glance to check for more weapons, and threw the slashed kimono over him.</p><p>"Hands stay on the wall," he warned as Tobirama tried to curl up under the cloth. </p><p>A quick series of hand seals and the bottom of the trench threw up narrow stone pillars -- a jutsu he had more often used to line up tiger pits but they would work pretty nicely as anchor points for the Senju's limbs. Madara made quick work of binding them there. He would need to figure something out against hand seals but in the meantime--</p><p>... Tobirama looked so ridiculously enticing, arms over his head with the tender undersides unveiled, head thrown back to stare with frustrated powerlessness at the wall. The kimono only hid him from the middle of the chest down. The pulse fluttering in his exposed throat wasn't a lie.</p><p>"What were you thinking, going for my brother?" Madara asked, voice rough, and forced his eyes away. </p><p>Tobirama turned his face away, pressed it against his arm to hide his eyes. </p><p>"I would have let you touch yourself, but now I can't trust you that far."</p><p>"Shut <em>up</em>," Tobirama growled, or moaned, something frustrated, edged with a pained whine. "I just--"</p><p>"You just what?" Silence. "...Tobirama."</p><p>"I wanted," the Senju started, and choked on his words, and this time it was almost a sob. "I -- fuck this, fuck you, just <em>do</em> me already -- no. No."</p><p>... Ah. </p><p>He rested a hand on the man's stomach through the cloth. His knees were up, clenched together; his hands pulled on the ropes. (Madara remembered every inch, every dip and swell of his bared body in vivid clarity.)</p><p>"If the two of you are going to have me anyway I want it to be with a knife in my hand," Tobirama whispered, tone feverish, desperate. "If -- I won't beg, I <em>won't</em>, I--"</p><p>Madara caught himself rubbing his hand in a circle across tense abdominals. He didn't stop. "You were going to make him instead?"</p><p>... Wet white eyelashes, bewildered frustration in red eyes, meeting his like... he wasn't sure. He wasn't sure Tobirama even knew what he wanted from Madara any longer, whether words or actions. </p><p>"I... Maybe? I just -- I won't have him looking down on me. I won't."</p><p>Madara nodded slowly, turning it over in his mind. Not an opportunistic attempt to murder an obstacle in his way, then; but a way to cling to the respect he was owed as Izuna's rival -- a way not to be looked at with contempt or pity.</p><p>"Alright," he said, voice quiet. "I still can't trust you, so I'm still going to bind you properly. If this is another attempt to play on my mercy it's going to be the last thing you ever do with your life, because I won't be taken for a fool one more time. Do you hear me?"</p><p>Tobirama blinked at him, eyes hazy, shaken, and then seemed to close off, and it felt real, like real, startled hurt. Of course it did, Madara reminded himself. A heat did that. How could you enjoy it and not go insane if you didn't trust the alpha taking you through it? Of course it made the omega want to surrender themself just as much as it made the alpha want to provide whatever it was they needed. </p><p>Their bone structures were so different and never mind their colorings, but the way his lower lip jutted out just barely in his disappointment reminded Madara very much of Hashirama in his more sincere upsets.</p><p>Madara was brisk but thorough in binding him again. Each ankle to a stone pillar, enough slack to touch knees together but no more. Then he separated the wrists, each bandaged to shield the skin and veins and then tied a shoulders' width apart, fingers tucked into fists to prevent another one-handed raiton seal. Staked out like a sacrifice to the dragon gods of the whirlpool sea.</p><p>He was impersonal until he glanced at Tobirama's face again, and saw blood.</p><p>"What are you doing?!" Madara spluttered as he caught the Senju's jaw in one hand, dug his thumb in the muscle to force it to relax. </p><p>Tobirama hissed; didn't try to bite. His eyes were furiously wet. </p><p>The blood was only a few flecks on his mouth -- not his tongue, not <em>I would rather commit honorable suicide than be disgraced</em> as Madara had for one instant been utterly certain of -- but the indent in his lower lip was clear, bruise-deep. Sighing, Madara pressed his thumb to Tobirama's lower lip to free it of his teeth. </p><p>"Idiot." He let go, watched the man's drained, dulled face. Tugged his own glove off. "Bite down on that, if you must."</p><p>"Fuck off," Tobirama muttered under his breath, and then set his teeth in the offered glove and snatched it away with a savage twitch of his head, like he hoped he might still catch a bit of flesh along with it. Madara watched his jaw roll for a moment.</p><p>Watched wetness pearl up like dew on white eyelashes, wiped away by furious blinking only to bloom right back. Knees press forcefully together, hips grinding back into the ground. </p><p>Tobirama wasn't going to ask, not even if he had to bite his own tongue off first.</p><p>"... I don't... have any objects the right size," Madara forced out, face heating up, and glared away at the candle for a second. </p><p>No, he couldn't have emotions right now. He couldn't show them. It would only shame them both. He wiped his face clean of expression, breathed tension out of his shoulders; found Senju Tobirama's face once again. Detaching from the moment, from the desire and the understanding and the frustration.</p><p>"Would you find my fingers an acceptable substitute?"</p><p>He weighed every single word -- couldn't make it sound like he was doing the Senju too much of a favor, but couldn't sound enthused about it either -- and it came out stilted, and Tobirama still stiffened to stare death at him, teeth clenched so hard on his glove they'd probably managed to cut through the leather to grind together. Madara kept his face still, empty, his eyes black.</p><p>The white demon of the Senju spat out the glove, teeth bared. "I--"</p><p> Icy rage and boiling despair and --</p><p>"I would," Hashirama's baby brother whispered, voice cracking in the middle. </p><p>His knees stayed clenched together until Madara shifted to sit beside his hip and rested his bare hand on one of them. Then they parted, just a palm's width. Madara gave a sober nod and slid his hand up the inside of his thigh.</p><p>Tobirama's eyes stayed on Madara's, even though he had turned his face to press his cheekbone to his arm, half-hidden. Madara wished he could ask him not to look. To just allow the both of them to ignore each other, to pretend it wasn't his hand finding clinging slickness over silk-thin skin, the feverish heat of his core.</p><p>"Fast or slow?"</p><p>Tobirama's eyelids twitched, his lip curling up just barely. "Get <em>in</em> me already."</p><p>Madara snorted. "Fine."</p><p>He avoided the root of Tobirama's penis -- at this point what would it do except work him up to an untenable fever pitch? -- slipped his fingers down along the crease of his lips, and they were so damned drenched that Madara didn't even have to exert any pressure at all for his middle finger to slip in.</p><p>The wires twanged as the Senju yanked on all of them at once. Madara waited him out, pretending to be deaf to the keening; slipped two more fingers in the second the death grip of the man's thighs relaxed. </p><p>They didn't stay relaxed more than half a second after that; the Senju howled, choked on nothing, thrashed briefly. Wrist trapped, Madara went about crooking his fingers to press down on the man's walls, seeking the spot that -- ah.</p><p>It was so strange to sit up straight and proper right by someone violently trying to fuck themself on his hand. Tobirama didn't have a lot of slack, but he used every single inch ruthlessly, hips rolling choppily like a boat in a storm. Madara made sure to meet his movements, up to the last knuckle in clenching heat.</p><p>"Ah -- <em>fuck</em>." Tobirama briefly arched off the floor, then subsided, panting and loose -- for all of five seconds before he started moving again. His eyes, closed at some point, opened again to give Madara a hazy yet still suspicious look.</p><p>"Might I advise you not to break my wrist," Madara said with dry sarcasm. Tobirama snorted, mouth curling up in reluctant amusement; kept rocking, a tiny bit less harshly. </p><p>"Two hands," was all he said. Madara snorted back.</p><p>"Right. How silly of me to forget." But his words washed over Tobirama without catching his attention again, already gone right back to his straining body, the next orgasm already rising. Madara wondered if he was supposed to have them in such quick succession, or if it was just all that waiting. </p><p>Madara wondered how long he was going to succeed in pretending he stopped at the waist and all his impressions as to the contrary were phantom limb syndrome and lies. His prick was hard, arching stubbornly against the thick cloth of his pants. Maybe sitting seiza would help, the context of discipline and ceremony, the -- Tobirama keened, toes curling against the ground, throat offered.</p><p>He came again. Madara gentled him through the come-down, thumb rubbing back and forth at the tender skin of his entrance, at the root of his smooth omega prick. Wiry hair soaked through with his pleasure surrounded his slit, his prick. Madara made sure he didn't look. The kimono mostly covered his crotch, but it had ridden up on Madara's forearm. He wondered if it was as white as the hair on his head, or if it was dark somehow.</p><p>Pressing on his inner walls as Tobirama breathed through his recovery period didn't do enough to accurately simulate a knot, he knew this, he could read it in the man's knit brow, his unsettled shifting. He wouldn't be moving if he was properly tied. But trying to use two hands to stretch him out better might break Madara's wrists for real.</p><p>Gently, he spread his fingers as far as he could, crooked them into twitching walls, looking for that good spot at the front of his... Yes. There it was. </p><p>He watched the man sigh, trembling, watched Tobirama watch him back between wet eyelashes.</p><p>Watched him close his eyes, deliberately, and let himself sigh louder on Madara's fingers, the exhalation turned into murmuring approval at the end. </p><p>Another orgasm, softer, gentler, like an omega would have mid-knot, full and stretched but with less friction. Madara's legs ached from keeping the position but he refused to shuffle his weight around. He knew his own knot had thickened some, prick fattened along his whole length; every time Tobirama clenched down on his fingers all slick and silky and hot he had to push back vivid thoughts of a phantom cunt on him. If he gave himself a single squeeze he was going to knot in full -- he was going to come, right there in his pants, like a desperate imbecile, like a rut-brained idiot.</p><p>This wasn't for him. None of this was for him. He was not going to go an inch farther than what the omega he was caring for needed. He would not be accused of anything improper.</p><p>Not of anything more improper than fingering an omega that was not his to seed, at least.</p>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The candle was down to half its wick. </p><p>On the futon Tobirama lay still in his bonds, skin glistening in the low golden light, the well-bitten glove hanging from his mouth, face empty of everything but animal need. Madara didn't think he'd heard firsthand of a heat as bad as this one. Was it the drugs? How long he had resisted them? The external orgasms, earlier, revving him up, coupled with the lack of true knot now -- unable to fool his instincts into believing that he was, indeed, being bred right now? Madara wasn't satisfying him, not entirely.</p><p>He was satisfying him enough. Tobirama would get through his heat alive and unscathed. It was just...</p><p>"The best and biggest genjutsu maze I ever built," Izuna said quietly from just behind the first bend of the tunnel. He sounded exhausted, slightly bitter behind the philosophical tone. "All to shield the nest of an omega I'm not even keeping."</p><p>Madara blinked, straightened his spine. He had known Izuna was near. He hadn't expected him to speak. Madara's little brother hadn't said a thing the last three times he slipped in to check on them, and retreated at the first -- next -- cry.</p><p>"I appreciate it," he said just as quietly. His voice came out a little raw. He unlocked his fingers -- his articulations hurt -- and slipped out as discreetly as he could. Against his thigh Tobirama's flank stretched in a sudden deep breath and he shifted, hips rolling lazily, knees turning outwards. His eyelids fluttered, but didn't open in the end. </p><p>An almost silent inhale had Madara glance back. He caught his brother with red eyes and a devastated expression, for a flicker of an instant before he noticed Madara noticing and turned his face away. "My bad," he forced out as Madara flipped the kimono across the Senju's body. "Thought you were done."</p><p>"You can look now." Madara stretched his creaking spine, flexed and curled his fingers. </p><p>Izuna shuffled inside along the wall, eyes flickering here and there, anywhere but on Tobirama. They stopped on Madara's hand and he gave a gasping, despairingly amused whimper. "Oh good lord. The skin of your fingers is <em>pruny</em>."</p><p>"Mmmh. The next elder who tells me I'm not disciplined enough for a clan head I am punching through the throat and out the other side," he mused. Izuna barked out a laugh, startled.</p><p>"I will <em>pay</em> you. Double for Takezō-san. <em>Triple</em> for Yoritomo."</p><p>"Yoritomo I'll do for free," Madara growled, not having forgotten who had served him that steaming plate of bullshit about rescuing defiled shrine maiden, or riled up the alpha brats, starting with his own great-nephew Daichi.</p><p>Cackling under his breath, Izuna started moving along the wall, picking up piles of the clothes he'd had in his traveling scroll and folding them. His smile faded away as he progressed, looking down at all the kimono on his lap.</p><p>It wasn't exactly cold, in a small underground room with no breeze, with two excited people's worth of body heat. It wasn't cold but Tobirama had sweated so much and now the hair on his legs was pricking up a little.</p><p>Madara wasn't really surprised when his brother started heaping them up against Tobirama's bare sides, folds of cloth flipping over to cover the edges of his body. It wasn't even worth the name of nest at this point, but the instinct to surround and cover the omega...</p><p>"Izuna?"</p><p>Izuna stared mulishly at his own hands as he tucked a linen tunic between Tobirama's raised arm and his head. "Shut up, I know."</p><p>It wasn't a safe instinct to indulge but the instinct to drive rival litters away from the nest was just as strong and hardly less personal, in the end. Madara said nothing, watching his brother hover on his knees by an omega they could never claim. Madara's eyes were gritty with sleepiness and frustration.</p><p>At a brush of cotton on his ribs, Tobirama shifted, turned his head slightly. </p><p>"Mngh. Empty..."</p><p>"Yes. I need a break." His wrist still ached. His wrist, his fingers, his thumb. He should switch hands next time... </p><p>Tobirama's brow furrowed in thought; he made a small negative noise. "Nnh. 'zuna?"</p><p>"--What?"</p><p>"'zuna's turn," Tobirama mumbled, and went right back to sleep.</p><p>Izuna laughed, not like he found it amusing. Looked up to meet Madara's eyes, mouth twisted, eyes tight at the corners.</p><p>"How much do you think he knows what he's saying right now?" </p><p>"Not sure." Tobirama didn't need another orgasm right now anyway, or he certainly wouldn't be asleep. He just felt uncomfortable with his emptiness. Madara curled and uncurled his fingers, trying to soothe the cramps and aches.</p><p>"If he did, I could... Ugh. Never mind." He turned his face away. Madara wished he weren't sitting on Tobirama's other side, that he could draw his little brother against his flank. It was hard, not touching anything, anyone. "You know what, when we have some downtime, the next time I'm going to Takatoriya I'm bringing you."</p><p>Madara spluttered. "Don't you go there to <em>pick up people</em>?"</p><p>"Yes? That's the point?" Izuna waved his hand airily, legs crossed at the ankle and swinging his weight like he didn't have a care in the world. "We kind of need to pick up people."</p><p>"You don't need <em>me </em>to pick up people!"</p><p>All at once his brother's paper-thin careless cheer fell, replaced with -- Madara winced. "I need us to pick up people, because <em>we're a set now</em>. Or are you just expecting us to be that on paper, when you get around to marrying? Am I just gonna be a tagalong? Are we going to be the kind of siblings who just -- what -- take turns? Have <em>schedules</em>?"</p><p>... Oh. Damn.</p><p>"Come here," he capitulated, lifting his arm from his side to make a space. </p><p>Izuna glared away at the wall for a moment, jaw tight, and then sighed out all at once and cat-footed his way across Tobirama's arms. He sat on the ground, huffing, and tipped over into Madara's side with his arms crossed defensively. Madara squeezed him close instantly, staring away in miserable awkwardness. </p><p>"I don't--" he tried, and then realized he didn't know what he was going to follow it up with. He wasn't even sure what it was he was trying to deny. "You..."</p><p>Izuna shoved his shoulder into Madara's armpit, chin tucked in mulishly. Madara groaned.</p><p>"I'm sorry if I made you feel -- Izuna. We're littermates now. I didn't know..." </p><p>He'd never asked.</p><p>"Of course I want us to be a proper set together," he soothed. Izuna scoffed. Madara groaned again. "Ugh. Not 'of course'. Right. What made you think I didn't?"</p><p>"What would make me think you did? Every time I hit on someone before you, you get all awkward and sneak off. I've tried singles and triplets and I've tried every body shape and coloring I can think of and I still don't even know what you <em>like</em>. You never tell me when I ask! Do you only like omegas? Do you like <em>alphas</em>? I don't have a clue."</p><p>Madara flushed, and then paled, stomach sinking. "I -- I thought those were just for you--"</p><p>Izuna snarled, teeth bared in disbelief. "I invited you!"</p><p>"I thought you were being <em>polite!</em> Just because we're siblings -- you're a beta, you're free to have as many affairs as you want, it's <em>fine</em>. Izuna, it's fine if you want to. I just didn't understand you..." His throat went tight. "... Were you choosing them for me?"</p><p>Izuna stared for another handful of seconds and then looked away, slumping against Madara's side once again. "Well. Not all of them. And I guess I didn't invite you every time."</p><p>Madara didn't want to ask if that was because he'd gotten tired of being turned down. He gave his little brother a squeeze, bumping their heads together gently.</p><p>"Next time I'm making you choose," Izuna muttered. "Because I still have no clue what you even go for. Do you go for anything at all?" He blinked, straightened up in mild alarm to stare at Madara's face. "Oh, shit. Are you like Takashi-san? You know, like it's already too much during a rut, so it's kind of -- weird or gross the rest of the time?"</p><p>Madara cleared his throat, embarrassed; checked the little underground room quickly for something to do. Tobirama still breathed softly, face flushed and legs loose. None of the trap warnings had alerted them.</p><p>"No, I. My needs are fine. Normal. I mean, I <em>have </em>them -- argh. Those goddamned elders were in my ear before I even approached puberty about the respectability of my position and how sowing my wild oats would only sow bastards and wannabe-concubines trying to ride my coattails to the top. Seeing as I had '<em>no beta siblings to counsel and restrain me</em>,' you see. I guess I simply grew..."</p><p>"Bashful?"</p><p>Madara squinted threateningly at his brother. His brother only grinned back.</p><p>"Aww, Niisan. You're <em>bashful</em>. That's cute."</p><p>"I am not <em>bashful!</em> I am <em>passionate</em> and -- no, shut up. Izuna. Izuna, I will make you regret it. <em>Izuna</em>--"</p><p>Cackling like a fiend, Madara's brother tipped over onto his other side, toppled across a pile of hakama. Madara was still feeling guilty enough -- and aware enough that they were still in enemy territory and sharing a nest with yet another enemy -- that he didn't pounce on him to ruffle his hair out of all recognition. Harrumphing in protest, he crossed his arms, and resentfully let his brother have this one. He did kind of deserve it.</p><p>Izuna's laughter faded slowly as he watched the Senju's slumbering face, white hair messy with sweat and falling across his closed eyelids.</p><p>"Are we even sure he's asleep?"</p><p>"I thought nothing was even sure with him?"</p><p>"Don't <em>remind</em> me." Sighing, Izuna pushed up on one elbow. </p><p>The faint breeze from his movement brought a new wave of goosebumps on the Senju's skin, and he shifted minutely toward where Izuna had been, making a quiet sound of disgruntlement. Izuna made the same kind of face he did finding a fly in his soup.</p><p>"Alpha?" the Senju mumbled, eyebrows furrowing. His eyes cracked open; he turned his head toward Izuna, long white throat exposed, spent a few seconds staring muzzily. "... Izuna."</p><p>"I am indeed Izuna," Madara's little brother replied, smiling unpleasantly as he pushed himself up on one elbow to stare him down. "How astute."</p><p>Tobirama didn't seem to mind overly much about being loomed over, simply shifting in his bonds to work out the stiffness. It made muscles move under candlelit skin from elbow to ribs. Madara smothered a frustrated groan.</p><p>Tobirama's red eyes glided indifferently past Izuna's face, looked to Madara. Heavy-lidded exhaustion barred his irises with white lashes as he regarded him with something that seemed like thoughtfulness instead of just foggy-brained confusion. "Mnh. Madara. Water?"</p><p>Izuna leaned farther over him, scowling. "Hey, don't ignore me."</p><p>Tobirama blinked once, with deliberate slowness, and pointedly avoided looking at him, tilting his head just enough to find Madara's eyes again. "Why shouldn't I?"</p><p>Madara let out a long sigh and picked up his much lightened gourd. "Are you seriously looking me in the eye to <em>make a point</em>, Senju?"</p><p>Tobirama made a noncommittal noise. Izuna bristled. </p><p>"Did you know he could be this petty, Izuna? It's kind of amazing." Madara handed Izuna the bottle. "Don't try to play me against my brother, Senju."</p><p>Tobirama actually <em>pouted</em>, lower lip jutting out. Madara snickered. Still half out of it, and his first instinct was to find an opening to exploit.</p><p>"That is not even his pettiest," Izuna said, a smirk in his voice, as he leaned in with the gourd in hand. </p><p>"Like you can talk to me about--" Tobirama gagged on the gourd's opening, choked out water, and turned his head away. "Hey!"</p><p>"Oh, come on, don't pretend to choke just to be an ass."</p><p>Tobirama's eyes narrowed dangerously. A second later Madara was throwing his arm in the middle of a jet of water to keep his brother from being disfigured or -- eugh.</p><p>Alright, so it hadn't been an attack. </p><p>"I told you no spitting!"</p><p>"You told me no water <em>kunai and the like</em>. This is perfectly normal spit water."</p><p>Madara made a disgusted face as he unknotted his belt, then pulled his robe off over his head. At least he wasn't in full armor, that would have been a problem. It was a lot less stiflingly hot like this; but he hadn't wanted to even start getting undressed around the Senju when there was no one to stand witness. It would be too... No. </p><p>The wet robe got spread across the rocks to dry; the belt of his under-kimono got a quick double-knot tied in, just in case. When he checked on them again Izuna was once again attempting to press the gourd to the captive's face. Sighing, Madara snatched it out of his hand. </p><p>"Izuna, we don't actually have infinite water and I'm also going to get thirsty at some point," he grumbled. "Senju... Behave."</p><p>He shooed Izuna off to Tobirama's other side so he could slip a hand under his head, catch a fistful of hair to control his movements -- a precaution he gave barely a thought to as he did it. Tobirama stiffened all over.</p><p>"... Senju?"</p><p>Madara paused, the mouth of the bottle hovering barely half an inch away from his mouth. Tobirama's eyes were scrunched closed, his jaw clenched tight. </p><p>"...Alright," he capitulated. "If you promise not to spit ag--"</p><p>Tobirama arched against his hold, made a strangled noise, and closed his teeth on the gourd's opening. One swallow, two -- he choked, swallowed stubbornly, and swallowed again. His forehead was pearling with sweat all over again, cheeks and throat flushing hot. The way his lips stretched around the --</p><p>"I could have lived a long time without having to know that you enjoy getting your hair pulled, Senju," Izuna said, lips pursed doubtfully. (Madara noticed with a touch of alarm that his little brother had the beginning of a flush riding high on his cheekbones.)</p><p>Tobirama actually snarled at him. "Shut the <em>fuck</em> up, Uchiha. Seven gods as my witness, I will <em>end</em> you."</p><p>Madara... could probably have redirected the Senju's attention away from his murderous thoughts toward his little brother via something else than yanking on his hair again, but it was still caught in his fist and he had never pretended he wasn't petty as hell, too.</p><p>Well, not to himself at least.</p><p>"Oh dear," Izuna said, making a strange grimace -- one trying to convey disdain but too... too intense for that. "That's a kink alright."</p><p>"I'm in heat, you fuckwit," Tobirama rasped back, "<em>everything</em> is a kink." Then, staring up at Madara, he pointedly pulled against his hold and let out a deliberate groan of satisfaction. Madara flushed hot. "Oh, what else am I going to have to slit my own throat from shame over later... Mmh. Your <em>voices</em>. Sounds so damn good. Leather gloves. Feel good, smell good -- Madara -- wish you'd touch me with the gloves on... <em>Ah</em>."</p><p>A daydreaming look on his face, he devolved into quiet panting as they stared down at him in horrified fascination. Madara <em>knew</em> he'd provoked the man but he hadn't expected the Senju to weaponize even this. He should have; why had he expected -- Senju Tobirama did not have enough good, proper shame in his whole body to fill a <em>thimble</em>. Madara had known gleefully nudist toddlers who had more of it than he did.</p><p>"Your <em>calluses</em>," Tobirama breathed, rocking his hips against the ground. "Rubbing against my--"</p><p>Izuna pressed a hand on his belly to pin him down, irises red and spinning. "Stop moaning for my brother!"</p><p>Tobirama's own red eyes gleamed with heated, vicious satisfaction. "Jealous I won't for you?"</p><p>Izuna's face twisted; he leaned over him, putting more weight on his abdominals, fingers curling, digging in the cloth still barely covering the Senju. "Oh, like fuck you wouldn't. You'd fucking <em>scream</em> and I wouldn't even need you to be in heat."</p><p>"From <em>disgust</em>, maybe."</p><p>"I thought the first rule of handling Senju Tobirama was not letting him goad you," Madara interrupted, irritated despite himself. He freed his hand and Tobirama pouted, lower lip jutting out, eyes gleaming in mockery. Annoyed, he backhanded the nearest exposed underarm with his fingers, more of a flick than a real hit. </p><p>The man inhaled abruptly. Fuck. </p><p>"... Ah."</p><p>"Ah," concurred Madara, flushing all over again, and forced his eyes away. "Let's. Stop touching him."</p><p>Izuna's expression shifted too fast to read, angry denial to something more subdued; he leaned backwards. Tobirama's eyes flew wide open. "I will kill you both. I'll fucking kill you both."</p><p>He looked -- panicked, for a moment, furious only to cover that up -- and then <em>wrathful</em>, teeth bared, and he actually growled.</p><p>Madara and his brother watched him strain against his bonds and snarl for a very long, uncontrolled instant, and then stare fixedly at Madara and... Madara didn't like that, didn't like the ice creeping back in, <em>forced </em>back in, remembering the blood on that bitten lip too clearly. If he had to ask, then he would probably chew off his own tongue first. </p><p>"What's that, Senju?" Izuna tilted his head, his hand hovering over Tobirama's belly with only the fingertips still in contact. "I thought you'd rather die than be sullied by an Uchiha, but here you are. Ready to beg for it."</p><p>Goddamnit. Why was his little brother like this? Madara really didn't want to side with the cursed Senju over him, and if he'd had such an annoying enemy he could finally pay back for all that aggravation then damn straight he'd have mercilessly used it, but couldn't Izuna feel how hard it was not to defend the omega? Not to -- Tobirama's body was screaming for it, his smell, his cut-off words, and Madara <em>knew </em>he should not, actually, crawl over him to cover the man's straining body with his own and finally fuck him sated but <em>god</em>.</p><p>"<em>Beg </em>you?" the Senju spat back. "Beg <em>you</em>? Don't flatter yourself. What have you done for me so far? Trash talk? Is that all you know to do? Can you even use your hands or just your <em>mouth</em>?"</p><p>Izuna went dangerously still. "... You want my mouth, Senju?"</p><p>Tobirama's eyes glinted ferally. Was... Was Tobirama manipulating his little brother into going down on him? Really clumsily? <em>And it was working?</em> "Izuna--"</p><p>Izuna snarled -- paused, breathed out. Smiled, slow and almost friendly.</p><p>Then he put both hands back to back between the Senju's thighs, cupping the soft-skinned, soaked skin in both palms, and squeezed. "I don't <em>think</em> so."</p><p>Tobirama went stiff, back arching off the ground, knees jerking up as far as they could go, and then Izuna pushed them down and apart again, leaning over him as he kneaded at his inner thighs, nails digging in, pinkies almost brushing his crotch.</p><p>"Is that good, Senju? Is that <em>enough</em>? God you're <em>drenched</em>, so gross."</p><p>Madara couldn't even think for -- he wasn't sure, whole minutes, his eyes stuck to the place where his brother was ruffling up the kimono, leaving redder marks on flushed, glistening skin. </p><p>"I'll put my mouth on you if you let me put my dick, how's that?"</p><p>The Senju -- choked, sobbed, something in between, face turned into his arm and biting at his own mouth again. Madara cupped his chin without thinking, dug in his thumbs to make the man release it. "No, I told you not to do that," he couldn't help mumbling, looking around for the glove. "Give me a -- stop that. Stop that, it's alright--"</p><p>He had pressed his thumb against Tobirama's lower lip to keep it open, just for a second. Glanced away; and then there was wet heat around his thumb, sucking him in, a wet noise and oh. Oh, fuck, oh hell. That gorgeous, hazy-eyed omega with his flushed lips wrapped around Madara's thumb, his tongue pressing against the underside as if it was Madara's prick, like a sample, a promise--</p><p>They could, he knew right there. They could share him. Izuna's mouth on him, his mouth on Madara. He wouldn't fight, he was done, only token resistance left; if he bit it would only be the lovebite kind. He would let them share him and maybe he wouldn't beg with words but with the rest of him he would, if they gave one more nudge, if they just...</p><p>He'd given his word that Tobirama wouldn't be bred, but it was more than that. It was -- even if Izuna was the only one in his cunt, even if... </p><p>"Madara," Tobirama whispered when he pulled his thumb free, and his eyes were glossy-wet; he looked wrecked, done.</p><p>Smaller.</p><p>No.</p><p>"Do you need my fingers again? No -- shh, wait, don't answer, I know what you need. There, bite down. Good boy."</p><p>"Niisan?" Izuna asked, and he didn't sound vicious anymore, he sounded confused, a little hurt. Madara looked over his shoulder at him, hesitated.</p><p>They never had shared someone, but Tobirama wasn't theirs to share, and if -- Tobirama had only asked Madara, really. Only used that fact to reject Izuna some more and (<em>"Mm, 'zuna's turn."</em>) sleep talking didn't <em>count</em>. But. Fuck it, fuck, why was he taking a bloody Senju's feelings more seriously than <em>his brother's</em>?</p><p>Was he really about to tell his brother, his <em>littermate </em>to <em>take his hands off the omega</em>?</p><p>"He's done," Madara said helplessly, trying to explain, to... something. "He's -- he'll <em>break</em>, and then he'll be out for your <em>life</em> if--"</p><p>Eyes wide, shocked, Izuna looked down at Tobirama's face, at his jaws locked tight on the glove and his closed eyes, his face turned defensively away.</p><p>"...Oh."</p><p>"Izuna," Madara tried again, and couldn't find any more words than that.</p><p>"I'm not <em>scared </em>of him being out for my life," Izuna replied, but almost by rote, because he felt he should say it. "I... Alright. Alright."</p><p>It hurt right down to the core to think of his little brother giving up, stepping back, walking away. It hurt to think but it didn't happen. Izuna gentled his voice, a little casual, only a small edge of almost-friendly mockery. "Senju? ... Tobirama?"</p><p>His hands glided over the tops of bare thighs, patted. </p><p>"Tobirama," he tried again, slow like he wasn't quite sure he liked the way the name fit in his mouth. </p><p>The omega made a small sound of acknowledgement, and then took a breath, turned his head to look back.</p><p>"It's a real question," Madara's little brother said. "Do you want my dick? Just mine, not Niisan's."</p><p>Tobirama hesitated, then shook his head. Kept watching him, suspicious and damp-eyed. Not quivering but only because every inch of him had locked up. Madara couldn't help running a soothing hand down his stomach, just once. Damn; damn, this wasn't their omega, but it was so easy to want to treat him like he was.</p><p>"Boo. Alright, already."</p><p>"Not your mouth either," Madara cut in abruptly. "It's too... Too."</p><p>"Mmh." Izuna heaved a sigh, scowling briefly as he glared down and then getting stuck on Tobirama's exposed loins. Swallowing hard. </p><p>Tobirama shivered under him, skin prickling with goosebumps. Madara's hand knocked into his brother's as they both went for the piles of clothes all around to tuck them closer and then they both froze to stare guiltily at each other. </p><p>"Fucking touch my cunt already," Tobirama rasped under them.</p><p>Izuna opened his mouth, froze, grimacing; Madara asked dumbly, "who?"</p><p>"I don't <em>care</em>--"</p><p>Madara twitched. "If you don't care then you're too out of it to--"</p><p>Tobirama reared up as much as he could, teeth bared at Madara in unfeigned hostility. "Then <em>Izuna!</em> Get in my fucking cunt, Uchiha, your brother's worthless." He slumped back down onto the sleeping bag, shivering, breathing in a great gulp of air. "Ah. Fuck. <em>Fuck</em>. Izuna pl--"</p><p>Izuna surged forward, pressing a hand across his mouth.</p><p>Another hand between his thighs, cupping his whole pussy and <em>squeezing</em>. Tobirama yelled.</p><p>"God, I should make you beg," Izuna whispered, eyes sharingan-red and muffling hand not budging. "I should make you sing."</p><p>Tobirama seemed to bite down, if Madara believed Izuna's hiss, the way his fingers tightened on the man's face; they were glaring at each other, but Tobirama was also starting to shove his hips down into Izuna's hand so it probably... Madara thought it probably didn't mean 'fuck off'.</p><p>"Bet you'd almost manage to sound nice, moaning for my dick. Bet that'd make your shit-talk on the battlefield a lot more fun, if you can tell I'm imagining it in your <em>'please fuck me'</em> voice."</p><p>"Mrrph!"</p><p>"Oh, do you want me to stop? Do you want me to take my hands off you? You're almost there, are you. Wonder if you'd come hands-free... I should find out."</p><p>Madara's face was lava-hot, Madara's whole body was a block of molten steel. He couldn't turn his eyes away from the omega's straining body, unveiled inch by inch as the kimono shifted, his flashing-furious eyes, so alive, so present, the violent roll of his hips. He'd joked about Tobirama breaking his wrist earlier but right now the man seemed to honestly be attempting it. Had he been allowed to ride Izuna there was no doubt he would have tried to find out whether he could fracture his pelvis.</p><p>Izuna threw a leg over Tobirama's thigh, hovering over him; pretended to take his hand away. Smiling like he was on drugs, with hellfire in his eyes, with his fucking <em>mangekyō on</em>; and Madara would have scolded him for it if he could have found the words. </p><p>"... Maybe later," Izuna decided, laughing breathlessly, and thrust all four of his fingers in, gathered together with his palm up. Tobirama <em>yowled</em>. It might have been in pain. It probably was.</p><p>It took him approximately fifteen seconds before his back arched off the sleeping roll and his toes curled all over again.</p><p>He didn't moan again, though. He'd stopped breathing, eyes fluttering closed for a brief moment before he forced them open, eyes right back on Izuna, but so blurred with pleasure Madara would have been surprised if the man could even see his little brother's face.</p><p>"Pretty boy," Izuna murmured, fingers not slowing down. The noises they made assailed Madara's ears worse than the wet, slick noises his own hand had made earlier. It was worse knowing his brother was causing them. "I'll make you moan for me yet, but this is nice enough."</p><p>He let his other hand trail down from Tobirama's face, briefly curling over his throat, then caressing down his chest. Firm pressure, possessive, putting his weight in it. Tobirama shuddered, back arching to push into the touch. </p><p>"So damn pretty," Izuna said, quieter. Madara wanted to leave.</p><p>Madara knew he couldn't leave them alone, or they'd end up fucking. Madara knew he shouldn't <em>want </em>to go -- this was his brother. Littermate now, legally at least, socially. One day they'd be married to the same people. What was he supposed to do, treat their spouses like borrowed garden tools, handed over uncaringly when not in use? 'Here, I'm done raking my leaves, trade you for your trowel'? </p><p>"He doesn't get any real downtime, does he?" </p><p>Madara's head snapped up. That didn't sound like Izuna had been dirty-talking Tobirama -- he sounded thoughtful, like there was a little frown attached. "What? Oh. Not every time. Sometimes he'll fall asleep for a minute, but sometimes he needs them back to back."</p><p>He glanced over the Senju, noting down the straining thighs, the faint, uncontrollable roll of his hips. Tobirama's face still looked dazed, not really there, eyes opened barely a crack as if clinging to the idea that he must keep track of them even in the depths of his pleasure.</p><p>"You should keep going," he offered brusquely. "I'll go check on the perimeter."</p><p>He pushed himself up. Tobirama made a short, strangled noise, like a protest. Madara refused to look, refused to see what his little brother was doing to him.</p><p>"Just -- don't..."</p><p>Fuck this.</p><p>He wasn't going to insult his brother by reminding him once again that the Senju didn't want anyone's prick. If Izuna did it anyway, he...</p><p>Fuck this.</p><p>He whistled quietly for a report when he was out. The air of the forest before dawn felt shockingly cold on his skin, without his top layer of clothes; it was almost a surprise to remember that there still was a world beyond the low ceiling and rough walls of the burrow-nest. He stood for a while, listening to the quiet, until Shichiko landed a few feet away. He wasn't too surprised when she scrunched up her nose.</p><p>"Patrol went around us to chase the Fūma party out five minutes ago, Madara-sama. The injured are still at least thirty minutes from home."</p><p>She looked stern and displeased every time the wind shifted, and like she had a lot she'd love to say, but as long as she didn't say it Madara didn't have to care. "Good," he said, "dismissed."</p><p>For a long, red-eyed instant he wished she would say something, he wished the Fūma would find them after all, he wished he could <em>bite</em>. Tear into someone. He made himself breathe, gave into at least part of his instinct and circled the nest, checking for any tracks leading to it, but Izuna had cleaned up thoroughly earlier and Madara couldn't even find an overturned leaf. He found a tiny stream to refill his gourd, wondered if he should hunt. If... No.</p><p>Thinking about going back inside was intolerable but after the seventh time he almost veered right back to the bushes and the tunnel without thinking he admitted he was as clear-headed as he was going to get at this point, which -- wasn't. At all. He was angry and desperate to sink his teeth in -- someone's throat. Tobirama's thighs. Catch a greedy grip on pale flesh and...</p><p>He'd done his best to be mechanical, detached, to place respect and wariness between them like a barrier, but it hadn't been good enough to fulfill the man's needs, had it? Izuna had gotten him to respond -- to <em>want</em> -- in five minutes. It felt... Not good. Bitter.</p><p>Maybe he should just butt out.</p><p>"Ugh! Damned <em>Senjus</em>. Never had a single good thing happen to me when they're around." </p><p>He went stomping back to the tunnel. He was going to pop in, ask Izuna if he needed anything because this was <em>not</em> an omega they were sharing but it was still damn close to it and they'd just finished having a talk about Madara dodging every single attempt Izuna made at acknowledging it was going to happen at some point. Then he was going to... Do. Things. Set something on fire. Plot out his revenge on the Elders. Future training sessions with the band of idiots.</p><p>The smell, the atmosphere -- it was like walking in a sauna that was also a bordello. Muggy and heavy, layers and layers of hormones and need and pleasure, soured and freshened in turns for much too long. </p><p>"Izuna?" he called from the corner, not sure if he should come any closer. He could smell Izuna in there -- blood kin, but his smell didn't mingle enough with the omega's, didn't cover it properly and it was like a call, something he needed to fix.</p><p>Then Tobirama called for real. "Madara?"</p><p>He sounded like he'd been <em>crying</em>, raw and wavering.</p><p>"Ma -- <em>alpha</em>. Alpha please, can't -- can't, I <em>need </em>it--"</p><p>"Get in here," Izuna said between his teeth. </p><p>Madara got.</p><p>"--Knot me, knot me, hurts--"</p><p>Pale hair stuck with sweat to his temples, his neck, face tight with strain, lips bitten raw; he turned as much as he could toward Madara, breathing in great gulps.</p><p>"--Need it, need your knot please fill me, breed m--"</p><p>Madara pressed his palm against Tobirama's mouth to quieten him.</p><p>"He won't calm down," Izuna said tightly. "Three times in a row and it did nothing. You can't leave again, Madara, he needs to think he's being bred and <em>I can't do that</em>. He needs to, to smell you or something, fuck, that's not <em>normal</em>. What did you <em>do</em> to yourself, you fucking imbecile?"</p><p>The man didn't answer him, still straining to lean into Madara's legs, mouth open greedy and wet against his palm.</p><p>"... Shhh." Madara gave in. "We'll fill you."</p><p>Hormones, was it? Hormones and a feeling of fullness. It had to be enough to fool the body, otherwise no omega would ever be able to spend a heat alone, and everybody would bear a litter a year. </p><p>"Help me untie him."</p><p>Izuna stared at him, eyes wide, then sprang into action with a scowl on his face, with his teeth bared. They had the Senju free of his bonds in a handful of seconds, and then Madara was pulling him into a sitting position, pushing him forward into his brother's chest to steady him while he shifted the man's arms down and backwards, to tie them once again together at his back. He rubbed at his shoulders a little to loosen them, and then wound his arms in cotton and then wire.</p><p>Nude between them, loose and wrecked, the man's head lolled limply on Madara's brother's shoulder, bruised nape exposed.</p><p>Madara shifted closer, pushing and pulling until his and Izuna's knees were sandwiched together, Senju Tobirama's pale thighs straddling them both.</p><p>"You gonna?" Izuna asked him, jaw tight and eyes in mangekyō. </p><p>Madara spared a hand to reach across, give his neck a squeeze. "No."</p><p>"--Oh." Oddly, he looked relieved; then he cleared his throat, pretended indifference, hands rubbing great soothing arcs along Tobirama's flanks. "Then...?" </p><p>Madara patted him a last time and let go. Then he leaned back against the nearest wall, tugging them along. "Turn him around, face to me. Then we're--"</p><p>"<em>--Please, please--</em>"</p><p>"--Shh." He guided Tobirama's face into the crook of his neck; the omega pushed against his skin, mouthing at him haphazardly. "Shh, sweetheart, we'll fill you up. Izuna, stay close. Can you reach?"</p><p>"Yeah, sure." </p><p>Madara was so damned hard it ached, but he'd been aching for long enough that he barely noticed anymore. He did notice when Tobirama tried to grind on him, though.</p><p>"Hffgh-- damn. No, don't do that."</p><p>Izuna caught the omega's hips in his hands to tug him back a little, shuffled close enough to press against his back, sandwiching him tight between the two of them. Tobirama made a soft, keening noise, a sighing moan like relief. </p><p>Sharingan met sharingan past damp tangles of pale gray hair. The two Uchihas paused; then Izuna flicked Madara a smile, laughed breathlessly. "Let's pretend this is training for the first actual omega we'll share, yeah, Niisan? if we shared him for real then I'd have to live with the fact that <em>Senju Tobirama</em> got one of my bedroom firsts, so... This doesn't count, okay? Okay." </p><p>Madara couldn't help a quick bark of startled amusement. </p><p>"... 'zuna?" Tobirama mumbled against Madara's throat. </p><p>"There, there," Izuna said with a spark of humor, and -- must have slipped a hand between his legs, from the wet noises and the breathless whimper muffled into Madara's throat. "It'll be good, I promise. I've got to be able to rub your face in it later on, right?"</p><p>An arm around a trim waist, Madara hauled the man higher against his chest, and slipped his own hand under him and between his legs. </p><p>Feeling someone else's fingers there was... Strange, a bit awkward at first, but if they moved carefully enough it was easy to slide together, back and forth, to find a seesaw rhythm -- two fingers and then four, and then more, tugging and pressing at swollen inner walls, through a mess of slick fluids and the translucent semen omega pricks sometimes produced. </p><p>Quiet breathing noises, quiet whispers, the three of them pressed close in that dim little cave; he'd never done anything so intimate in his life. </p><p>They took their time stretching him, until he started cresting again and Izuna pointed all four of his fingers and fucked him harder past the loose curl of Madara's. </p><p>A great shudder, and then Tobirama came for the last time -- what Madara hoped was the last time, his teeth and lips all over Madara's neck, his hot breath in his ear. Madara's knot ached, pulsed with need, restrained by too-tight pants, too-rough underwear. The Senju didn't stop panting pained against him, straining against his tied arms. Madara led his brother into slower movements, fingers spreading inside him, but it didn't seem to help at all this time.</p><p>"So... Your fist or mine?"</p><p>Madara felt bad for snorting. "You're at a better angle for it. And -- I can't tell anymore if this is right, or -- am I lying to myself? If I come, if he can smell that, would that help?"</p><p>Izuna bit his lips, even as he started methodically curling in his thumb; Madara felt it nudging against his own fingers, and flushed, wondering if he should pull out already or... not quite yet, not while Tobirama was slowly tensing up realizing he was still too empty. </p><p>"If I were you, I wouldn't even worry. You're not coming <em>in</em> him. But I get you think it's... Not right."</p><p>Madara looked away. He really did feel it wasn't, but he was a shinobi; doing things he thought not right was his bread and butter. It was more that... it was an excuse to find his own selfish pleasure while denying Izuna the same excuse, and making his little brother feel judged if he decided to do it anyway.</p><p>"Keep it in your pants," Izuna said roughly, and tugged Madara's fingers out of the Senju's cunt by the wrist. "You don't want <em>any</em> accusations that you let him get to your sperm."</p><p>Grimacing, Madara pulled both hands away, wrapped his arms around Tobirama's waist and reclined to give his brother more space. Guiltily, he wished he could see, could watch the omega's puffed-up slit swallow something so big. A knot was meant to grow to its full girth once it was already inside, so the omega being bred couldn't pull off until they were properly seeded. It wasn't impossible to force it in or out at that point but Madara winced to think of it anyway.</p><p>Winced and wanted to see it, wanted to take it all in, the slow coaxing of a straining body into going past its limit, the overwhelmed whimpers, the -- would Izuna's fist <em>show</em> through the man's flat belly, or were his muscles too strong, too solid to allow that? Just the thought had him dizzy, his prick pearling liquid in eagerness. </p><p>"--Ah." Tobirama leaned his head back, blinked dazedly at Madara. "... Ah."</p><p>"Does it hurt?"</p><p>The man bit at his lip. "Nnh... No. Full." A dazed blink. "Babies? I--"</p><p>Madara shushed him, guiding his head to rest on his shoulder once again. "Don't worry. No babies."</p><p>"No sharingan babies," Tobirama mumbled, staring sightlessly at Madara's neck. "You'd steal them."</p><p>"They'd be ours in the first place," Izuna shot back, and his shoulder slid forward like -- Tobirama let out a gasp of breath, curled forward into Madara's chest, started rocking. </p><p>"Fuck off, Uchiha," he managed to rasp out, but not for a whole minute. "My -- mine. My babies are <em>mine</em>. Not for you. Not -- ah. Ah."</p><p>He devolved into panting, still rocking in short, slow waves on (oh god) Izuna's fist, Izuna's knuckles and his calluses and the whole of the weapon that was his hand. Madara ached to know how that felt, so much tender flesh squeezing down tight, bearing down on it, and Tobirama kept pressing against his shaft on the way down...</p><p>A good mother, huh. What a surprise. The demon of the Senju, the wraith of the battlefield. Ice-cold, pitiless.</p><p>"My babies," he kept mumbling, nuzzling at Madara's throat where the sweat had gathered the most. "Mnh -- Madara? Don't take them. Izuna. Don't take them."</p><p>"<em>Shit</em>," Izuna hissed, forehead pressed against Madara's forearms, still locked on the Senju's waist, and <em>shoved</em> forward with his weight, pressing the omega into Madara and his hand deeper up the omega's cunt. Madara swallowed back a grunt as Tobirama's body pressed tighter against his prick, head thudding back against the wall as his own pleasure rose. Tobirama had devolved back to quiet gasps and harsh panting, like he was building back up to his tenth or twentieth orgasm, or who even still knew.</p><p>A strong mother, protective and possessive and devoted -- with Madara's prick in his cunt, and his brother's, too, sharing the slick tight clench of him like they were both of them seeding him. Marking him, filling him with their spunk, with their get.</p><p>Madara could have pulled his hips back, could have forced himself to hold his own pleasure at bay, but all he managed to do in that instant with the image of his and Izuna's wife-to-be between them was to come.</p><p>His knot pulsed painfully without enough pressure past the mere weight of the Senju's body. He needed a while just existing with the release of pleasure before he could even stop staring at the ceiling, and check on his partners. Tobirama was out like a light, heavy and loose. Madara's body felt every breath, every shiver -- the feverish warmth and the weight of him, and the tackiness of his rapidly cooling sweat. </p><p>"Izuna?"</p><p>Izuna grunted from around hip-height. When Madara peered over Tobirama's shoulder he found his little brother with his eyes closed, his cheek pressed heavily against the small of the man's back just above the swell of a tight, dimpled ass. </p><p>His forearm still disappeared straight between Tobirama's thighs.</p><p>"... Stuck?" Madara couldn't help but ask, lip curling up despite himself.</p><p>"Har har." Izuna didn't open his eyes. </p><p>"Heh."</p><p>--</p><p>"We're <em>gross</em>," was the next thing Izuna said, ten or twenty minutes later, as he slowly pulled himself free. Blinking out of his light doze, Madara hummed an agreement. Tobirama was the worst offender, of course, stinking of stale heat, tacky and clammy with cooled-down sweat, and Madara had heaped as many clothes as he could gather one-handed onto him but that was no substitute for being dry and clean.</p><p>... And of course there was the matter of his own underwear, gone quite uncomfortable by now. </p><p>He frowned, tried to clear his mind. Tobirama's body wasn't back to a normal temperature yet, but it was slowly getting there. His heat was done. That Madara had thought of the man's discomfort before his own was an instinct-fueled hangup he needed to get back under control. </p><p>Preferably before the patrol doubled back, or the Elders sent reinforcements that...</p><p>... He pressed a palm to the ground, past the sleeping bag, and sent a pulse of chakra in the earth, his mind open to sense.</p><p>The patrol was already there, having chased or rerouted the Fūma. He could feel eight, ten flickers of Uchiha fire in position around the nest.</p><p>"Patrol's back," he told Izuna, expressionless. "Can't feel any Fūma."</p><p>They weren't going to interrupt until Madara or Izuna came out -- forcing their way inside a nest in the middle of a heat would be the fastest way to knock Izuna into a frenzy and have him kill them out of hand. </p><p>But they weren't going to leave before reinforcements came, either.</p><p>Straight from the Uchiha compound, all of them by now knowing that Senju Tobirama was not a beta but a breeder, and that if he hadn't been bred just now they could certainly make another attempt.</p><p>"Well, that's that," he grumbled, cautiously maneuvering the Senju off him. A step away Izuna was sitting up, meticulously scrubbing at his hand from fingertips to elbow with a wet rag. He lobbed another rag at Madara without looking at him, then went back to wicking at the webbing between his fingers.</p><p>They cleaned up in silence, taking off soiled robes and pants to slip on the least scent-marked of Izuna's stash, neatening the mad tangles of their respective ponytails, and trying and failing to ignore the man starting to shiver in arm's reach.</p><p>Izuna broke first, huffing angrily as he dampened an undershirt -- being all out of clean rags -- and started cleaning his back. Tobirama's wrists were still tied together behind him; Izuna went underneath, and into his armpits to scrub, making faces. </p><p>On the back of the man's neck, he lingered, slowly ruffling up the hair tickling his nape, thumb rubbing thin cloth back and forth over the bruise Madara's bite had left. </p><p>Madara cleared his throat, gone tight with feelings he couldn't name. "Do you want me to do his, ah... Down there?"</p><p>Izuna scoffed, flicked him a tired smile. "You can't even say it."</p><p>He switched undershirts, sacrificing a soft cotton one with gorgeous dyed patterns at the hemline to wash the omega's thighs clean, matter of fact. Madara vaguely wondered where he'd learned it; last Madara knew he was the one changing the brat's diapers and the like, and there hadn't been many close cousins young enough to learn with after that. </p><p>Madara helped his brother turn the man on his side so they could wipe his front, spread out dry kimono underneath him, wrestle pants up his legs. Bind his ankles together, too, and it pinched strangely when the Senju stretched his legs into Madara's grip and spread his toes pleasantly before relaxing again.</p><p>"We're gonna have to marry him now, aren't we."</p><p>Madara's head reared up. "What?"</p><p>Izuna avoided his eyes, face flushed and glaring stubbornly at the clothes he was folding back up and then dumping in little piles on the Senju's back. "I mean -- we don't <em>have</em> to, that's not what I -- but you want him as a hostage and the Elders will want him -- you know."</p><p>"--Ah?"</p><p>"... We <em>could</em> marry him. Like. Hostage-marry him. That way we don't need to give him back, we can still use him, his brother wouldn't be able to demand him back but you could still have an agreement or -- just reassure him he's treated well. Or something." He waved a hand in the air aimlessly, illustrating nothing in particular. "You get your bargaining chip. The Elders get their Uchiha babies. Nobody gets what they wanted in the <em>way</em> they wanted it, but hey, compromise! The main house was due for an outcross this generation or the next anyway. If this gets us some trade routes or even a couple months' cease-fire on top it's not a bad deal."</p><p>Madara sat back to watch his brother in silence. Oh.</p><p>"You can't stand him, though." He could tell Izuna <em>wanted </em>the man, he'd have to be blind and lobotomized to have missed it. Tolerating him long-term, now, that was something else. "How did you get from that to <em>marriage</em>?"</p><p>Izuna lobbed a sock at his face. "Well it was kind of already on my mind, what with your teenage love story with <em>that other Senju he's littermates with</em>."</p><p>Madara spluttered, painful tenderness evaporated in exchange for shocked horror. "My <em>what</em>?"</p><p>"Are you kidding me?! Madara--"</p><p>"I did not have a <em>teenage love story</em> with <em>Hashirama!</em> Hashirama?! Are you kidding me?" Madara stood in horror -- had to stand stooped, no head room, and couldn't pace angrily around. "Did you -- oh my god, did you think that all along?! Why would you -- no! He was my <em>friend</em>, we had political plots and philosophical debates, we threw sticks at each other like <em>brats</em>, we didn't -- agh!"</p><p>Suddenly, two palms sandwiched his face, blocking his flailing. He was so shocked that the little jerk would dare that he froze. </p><p>Izuna's expression was... Amused, but oddly wistful, too. Quietly sad.</p><p>"Sorry for misunderstanding, then, but you have to admit an alpha and an omega sneaking around to meet in secret..."</p><p>Madara made a highly offended face as he sank back to his haunches, hands coming up to catch his brother's wrists, but declined to pull him off just yet. </p><p>"Well, that's a lot of teen angst I went through for nothing, then."</p><p>"...Uh?"</p><p>"Father had told us he was going to put us in the same litter, remember?" Izuna sighed, lips quirked up just a little bit. "That the age difference was a little big, but at thirteen I was catching up to you puberty-wise anyway. So my first loyalty would be to you. And I was just so <em>sure </em>you were going to run away and elope in a misguided attempt to force our clans to make peace. So..."</p><p>--Oh. </p><p>He had never said anything, never complained, not directly. Madara would have dragged him into a marriage he didn't want with people he hated and didn't trust, and he'd never... He had complained about other things, oh, plenty of those. Peace, truces, alliances, yes. </p><p>He had never said he didn't want to be forced to marry people that only Madara loved.</p><p>"Let's just say this isn't the first time I have to deal with matrimonial thoughts about that bleached bag of assholes, alright?" Sighing soulfuly, a touch theatrical, he released Madara's face. "I really can't believe you're not carrying a torch for the oak-fucker after all. Are you <em>sure?</em> You mope after him like he's the one that got away."</p><p>"<em>Izuna</em>," Madara growled, or maybe more like choked, face hot with mortification. "For the last time, I don't--"</p><p>Agh.</p><p>They really hadn't talked enough, had they, for littermates. Madara did have this tendency to coddle Izuna's feelings, spare him from the complicated, the too private, the things they might disagree on.</p><p>"I... <em>Did</em> consider elopement, as a political plot." He cleared his throat, sighed. "Didn't have enough pull to make it stick, unless we ran away and never came back and that would have accomplished the opposite of what we were trying to do. Either they'd have forced a divorce or one of us would have been confined for life in some concubine's quarters, <em>if</em> we lived."</p><p>They were going to have to Tobirama-proof the old concubine quarters. God. <em>How</em>.</p><p>"We would have had a pretty companionable marriage," he admitted, making a bit of a face. "But."</p><p>"<em>But?</em>"</p><p>"Izuna, I don't think you understand," Madara said drolly, cracking a smile. The whole thing really was ridiculous, wasn't it. "The first time we met, he mocked me because I couldn't <em>piss</em> while he was standing <em>right behind me</em>. Can you imagine that attitude if one day in my life I had some trouble <em>getting it up?</em>"</p><p>Izuna stared in shock, eyes wide. "Wh-- huh?"</p><p>"Can you even <em>imagine </em>the performance anxiety he would curse me with? Appearing like a jack in the box to comment on the firmness of my erections? I would be a broken man in three months."</p><p>His little brother made a tiny, aspirated noise through his nose -- and then toppled over, arms around his ribs, laughing himself hoarse.</p><p>Madara was so busy grinning at him, watching him laugh, that he almost missed that Tobirama was laughing too. </p><p>Face down in a pile of clothes, he was silent, but his shoulders shook with unrestrained hilarity. Izuna caught Madara staring past him and turned over on his other side, still breathless and flushed from laughing but offended now, from having been caught by an enemy <em>relaxing</em>.</p><p>"--Hey! You bastard, you're awake?!"</p><p>He grabbed Tobirama's shoulder and turned him on his side. </p><p>The man's fox face was absolutely <em>full</em> of mirth and disbelieving glee. </p><p>Madara was so busy being offended -- so easy after several hours of fucking, of <em>cuddling</em>, their scents merged together in a big muddle of together-mate-nest -- that he didn't even register it as strange straight away. </p><p>But it was. Senju Tobirama, upon spying on their conversation and discovering that they were planning to force a marriage on him, was not going to be <em>amused</em>. Nothing would amuse him, not Izuna's mentions of awkward teenage years, not Madara's own attempts at levity, nothing. </p><p>But there was no way he hadn't been listening, was there? No way he hadn't faked weakness, once again.</p><p>"You're almost as ridiculous as Anija, aren't you?" the man said, eyes crinkled in a smile. </p><p>It looked real, it looked <em>relaxed</em> -- sarcastic, too, but not <em>mean</em>.</p><p>"You <em>know </em>we're surrounded," Madara said, trying to work out the angle, to figure out... He stretched out his sensing, finding Setsuna and Shichiko, the patrol, and five minutes out at least thirty more Uchihas rushing up to meet them. "You <em>know</em> that."</p><p>He crouched astride the Senju, a hand cupping his throat -- not really forcing yet, but <em>suggesting</em> he turn onto his back. Tobirama obliged him, loose and amused. </p><p>"What are you <em>planning</em>."</p><p>At their side Izuna had moved into a ready crouch of his own, hands flying up in a snake hand sign to seal the entry closed with a thump.</p><p>"You should be honored," the Senju said, flaring his chakra just a little -- <em>not a technique, a <strong>signal</strong> </em>-- "it's the first time I use it in the field."</p><p>From the outside, the roof tore open, loose earth rushing down on them in a choking, blinding wave. Eyes forced open in a slit, sharingan locked on his captive's form, the flow of his chakra, Madara lunged down to secure his grip, catch the man's hands to prevent hand seals. Still tied behind him, Madara was almost hugging him, smothering the man in chakra to prevent him catching a grip on some loose object to switch himself out with.</p><p>There was a strange flare from the outside -- Izuna gasped -- Madara's hands were empty. </p><p>Madara's <em>arms </em>weren't; Senju Tobirama was still lying down for him, smirking faintly. Dressed in the maiden's kimono Madara had cut off him earlier and his scent the same rising-but-not-crested heat scent and none of the subtle marks of his pleasure --</p><p>Unbound. </p><p>The man's hands snapped together in a tiger seal -- Madara grabbed them hard, flaring his chakra harder --</p><p>"<em>Kai.</em>"</p><p>Then there was nothing under him but a dissipating puff of air.</p><p>"Izuna!" he called out, scanning the trench feverishly, finding nothing alive through the dust. His brother had jumped out onto the lip of the hole, was doing the same thing on their surroundings, and so was the alarmed patrol.</p><p>"There was a -- what the fuck?! Did he revert himself to -- blood on his arms, that kimono--" </p><p>Madara pressed a hand down on the ground. The reinforcements had sped up, no doubt alerted by the earth jutsu. The Senju himself? He concentrated harder, searched, stretching out his area of perception. </p><p>Not a trace. </p><p>"<em>How?</em>" Izuna demanded, disbelieving. "He looked exactly like the time he escaped from the tree nest. Down to the goddamn <em>mud</em> on him! Was it a <em>genjutsu</em>?"</p><p>Madara shook his head, just as baffled. "He was solid. He took my weight until he -- <em>poofed</em>, like a clone, only it left <em>nothing behind</em>. Did..."</p><p>A clone. A solid clone, but not one made of earth or water. Air clones were -- not that. </p><p>That clone had had a <em>chakra network</em>.</p><p>As the reinforcements poured through the clearing, demanding intelligence, orders, Madara could only stare at his brother and direct them vaguely to report to the patrol leader for instructions on a search pattern, knowing it was too damn late.</p><p>"He didn't reach out for a kawarimi. The <em>clone</em> did."</p><p>They had the same chakra signature. Madara had never even noticed the outside one sliding past him.</p><p>The clone had switched itself with its original, and then dispelled. A solid clone, with enough smarts and independence to have tracked them down from the tree hollow to this new place while its original was lost in his own heat, waiting for <em>hours</em> for the right time to break its original free.</p><p>"How the <em>fuck?</em>" Madara yelled, grabbing his little brother's arm to give him a disbelieving shake. "How is that man <em>real?! </em>A new jutsu? A new jutsu! It's a fucking brand-new bullshit <em>cheat</em>, is what it is!"</p><p>Izuna grabbed back. "You see what I have to deal with?! I swear he rewrites the laws of nature just to piss me off some days! Oh my god, I'm gonna kill him next time, I really am." </p><p>"Good fucking luck," Madara barked back, eyes roaming the bushes with utter disbelief. "I can't believe he just -- that <em>asshole</em>. That utter, devious little <em>bastard</em>." He hadn't even let them see the seals!</p><p>Izuna let out a quiet whimper, half-laughing and desperate. "Can I fight the oak-fucker next time? Can I fight all of them <em>but</em> Tobirama?"</p><p>"Granted," he shot back, puffed up like a rooster. Getting to beat on him himself. Getting to see firsthand... </p><p>"Madara-sama!"</p><p>Ah, and here came some esteemed assholes to jostle his elbow. Naturally. Not Yoritomo himself, of course, much too venerable to risk it, but his bootlickers all the same. From the politely restrained, wrinkle-nosed <em>horror</em> on their faces he already knew their angle of attack. He raised a hand palm out to silence them, tilting his head to address his brother. </p><p>"Izuna. Find my discarded pants, seal them up. We would not want the council to fear not knowing where a single drop of my precious seed went to."</p><p>Tsutsuji-san spluttered. "Madara-sama, you smell like you <em>bred</em>--"</p><p>"I did not."</p><p>"--And he <em>escaped</em>?!"</p><p>'From under <em>your</em> guard,' she meant, 'did you <em>let</em> him?'</p><p>Madara hadn't, which was both extremely vexing and a huge relief. "A remarkable enemy indeed," he replied, teeth bared in what was only nominally a smile. "He would have made a formidable wife. Say, Tenzaburō-san, Tsutsuji-san. Don't you have children of marriageable age?"</p><p>Still reeling from the 'wife' comment, they could only blink and scowl at the brutal switch in topics. "...Pardon?"</p><p>Madara took a few leisurely steps away from them, forcing them to jog to follow. "I was thinking, we <em>are</em> due for a few outcrosses, and if we can't get our hands on the White Demon -- or, well, keep him once we have him -- I'm sure the Kaguya or the Toyotomi clans might have prospects of good stock to offer. So. How old are your children, again?"</p><p>From the hole, Izuna watched them, just as confused as they were but at least better at hiding it. He probably remembered exactly where Madara's pants and underpants had been buried from having his sharingan on, so he was quick to emerge again. Madara tilted his head discreetly at him, inviting him to join them, which he did with a jaunty bounce. </p><p>"What are we talking about?"</p><p>"Outcrosses. You made a very good point earlier. What do you think, Kaguya Haruka-sama had a litter about your age, didn't she?"</p><p>Izuna arched both eyebrows, gave a minuscule twitch of his eyes in the direction of the two Elders, and then grinned his innocent, 'why do you think I'm about to assassinate you and laugh' grin. "Oh, right! Though they do have that creepy bone bloodline they might not want to breed out. The Toyotomi would be better. Or the Hirako."</p><p>From the apoplectic looks on their faces the Elders knew exactly what Madara was driving at. One of the things Yoritomo was offering them was his vast network of contacts to introduce good matches; but if they pushed the fake outrage too far Madara was absolutely not above making that moot by marrying their children out-clan.</p><p>It wasn't going to keep them entirely cowed; but it might impress on at least these two that he was done messing around.</p><p>Izuna was still smiling, though his expression had taken on a tinge of amused regret -- a layer of carelessness papering over the real thing. "Ahh... Too bad the demon would have been so high-risk. Can you imagine the rewards?"</p><p>"I can imagine him murdering you in our marital bed," Madara replied dryly, and rested his hand on his brother's shoulder to give him a squeeze. </p><p>Because yes, yes he had imagined them, damn his stupid alpha self and its unforeseen weakness for terrifyingly competent omegas with smart mouths. Briefly, but he had. No blind obedience, but a fierce loyalty; and power and flexibility and innovation that... He would never fear his children assassinated in the night with a spouse like that.</p><p>Or being bored to death by genteel agreement to every word coming out of his mouth. Probably the opposite.</p><p>Had Tobirama been clanless, or even bound to a smaller clan, Madara would have been tempted to send a proper offer for his hand. Too bad he was a Senju. Too bad he was from the main Senju branch, ruling out even an old-fashioned bride-kidnapping. Would that Izuna's silly teenage notions of forcing peace with a wedding were even <em>possible</em>. But both clans would riot.</p><p>"Niisan?"</p><p>The light chatter had sufficiently put off the two elders, and the teams were coming back (empty-handed, of course, not a track to be found.) Taking to the trees to get back home, Madara quirked up his eyebrows. "Hm?"</p><p>"We're not going to get to sleep for a while yet, huh."</p><p>Pfft. Between finding reliable witnesses for his gods-be-damned outfit for the inevitable cross-examination, the cross-examination itself of his prick and where it had been, and the punishment detail he wanted to set up... "Very likely not."</p><p>He took a deep, bracing breath through his nose, scowling already at the very thought. </p><p>Following at his side, Izuna hummed thoughtfully, and then gave a smart nod. "Okay, just tell me where you want me."</p><p>Ah. Unquestioning support today, huh. A rarity where the Senju were even tangentially concerned...</p><p>No, that was unfair, he understood why. </p><p>And Madara had already promised himself he was going to do better on his side too. They were a set now. Partners.</p><p>"Actually... Let me list the faultlines I noticed between the Elders, and we can plan it together."</p><p>His baby brother blinked at him, startled. Madara cleared his throat, looked away to hide the start of an embarrassed flush.</p><p>"And if we survive without having killed a single one of them I'll let you take me to a teahouse and find us company."</p><p>Izuna stared at him for another second, and then started laughing. "Oh, that's all I had to do, huh, blue-balls you for a whole night? I'll remember it for next time."</p><p>"Oh, go to hell," Madara replied with incommensurable dignity, and shoved him off his tree.</p>
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